If the last few days hadn’t been dispiriting enough for those who believed the Supreme Court could still stand for reproductive freedom, equal rights for all Americans, a check on presidential power, a more humane criminal justice system and so much more, Wednesday afternoon brought the coup de grâce.

Everyone knew it was coming sooner than later, but Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, which he announced in a letter released hours after the court had issued its final rulings of the term, is still crushing. It sends a stark message to the tens of millions of Americans who have long turned to the court for the vindication of many of their most cherished rights and protections: Look somewhere else.

That place is the ballot box. So show up and vote. In the absence of a Supreme Court majority that will reliably protect human dignity, universal equality and women’s right to control their own bodies, it is up to Americans who cherish these values to elect politicians at every level of government who share them.

Justice Kennedy, who was nominated to the court by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed in 1988, defended these values, however imperfectly. He was the last in a line of Republican-appointed justices who moderated some of the reactionary tendencies on the court, which has now had a majority of Republican appointees for nearly half a century. All of those justices were confirmed in the days before ultraconservative activists hijacked the nomination process and ensured that only faithful right-wing ideologues would get a nod. With Justice Kennedy’s departure, the court is very likely to lock in an unmoderated, hard-right majority for the rest of most of our lives.