The impact and legacy that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg leaves on America will be felt for generations to come. Unfortunately, so will the craven, self-serving response to her passing by the current Republican leadership in Washington.

Recent polls show that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree—an astonishingly high level of consensus in these divided times—that the next president should nominate the replacement to Justice Ginsburg’s seat. And yet Republican leaders have ignored this consensus and are ramming through a nomination, salivating at the chance to further tilt the balance of the highest court in the land to the right at any cost.

Beyond the impact this will have on critical constitutional issues regarding healthcare, climate change, reproductive rights, gay marriage and the very existence of labor unions, what also worries me is the civic response. Our country simply does not have an unlimited capacity for division.  

For four years we have seen institutions shaken and norms obliterated. It’s made people cynical and distrustful, not just of elected leaders and the government, but of their fellow Americans. If the Republicans are successful in forcing this nominee through before the election, subverting the will and desire of a clear majority of our citizenry, it can only serve to inflame the divisiveness and further erode trust in our institutions. It will, I worry, cause lasting damage to our democracy.

Our campaign has been focused from the very start on addressing the problem of divisiveness in our politics. We  have aimed to engender trust by reaching out to our friends and neighbors across the aisle and letting them know that we care about issues affecting their lives, no matter what "team" they vote for.