In early July, Ruth Bader Ginsburg did something apparently unprecedented for a Supreme Court justice: She trashed a presidential candidate in the midst of an election. If Donald Trump won the presidency, she warned, “everything is up for grabs.” A few days later, she elaborated, “I can’t imagine what the country would be with Donald Trump as our president. . . . For the court . . . I don’t even want to contemplate that.” If her husband were still alive, he would have viewed a Trump victory as “time for us to move to New Zealand.” And the next week, she doubled down: “He is a faker. . . . He says whatever comes into his head at the moment. . . . How has he gotten away with not turning over his tax returns?”



Trump, of course, can’t handle criticism from a woman, especially an old and powerful one. Predictably, he tweeted “her mind is shot” and told her to resign. But then, in a stinging editorial rebuke, The New York Times declared that Trump was right and that Ginsburg should “drop the political punditry and the name-calling.” One of her loyal former law clerks sadly admitted that Ginsburg had “stepped over the line.” A few commentators defended her—judges such as Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito have crossed it, too, after all—but most thought she had acted unwisely. Ginsburg released a statement regretting her remarks and promising to be more “circumspect” in the future.

Both attack and apology were out of character. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born cautious. She is the essence of circumspection. She puts the prudence in jurisprudence. So why did she step over the line? Mark Joseph Stern at Slate speculated that Ginsburg had recklessly decided to “cash in her political capital after years of holding her fire.” As Ginsburg would say, I have to concur. But I was secretly delighted to see that the Practically Perfect Justice had committed a judicial crime of passion. Ginsburg is in a unique position of authority as probably the best-known and most admired living Supreme Court justice. Yet her office forbids her to speak out on political issues, and her authority as an impartial judge is undermined if she exerts influence outside the court. Barred from activism, she has instead come to represent an ideal, and the fact that she is a woman complicates that position even more.

Was it the secret superhero Notorious RBG who blasted Trump, or was it the indomitable Justice Ginsburg?

Indeed, the terms applied to Ginsburg since her appointment to the court are a veritable glossary of ladylike propriety. She’s been repeatedly described as austere, deliberative, soft-spoken, schoolmarmish, solemn, modest, and reserved. Her own children decided that her “sense of humor needed improvement” and kept a book called “Mommy Laughed” to record the apparently rare occasions when they succeeded in provoking a chuckle. Now 83, Ginsburg still works out twice a week with a personal trainer, lifting weights, doing push-ups, planks, and squats, and tossing a twelve-pound medicine ball. She never misses a deadline and needs very little sleep. In fact, she often stays up all night writing her opinions and briefs, pausing only to indulge in her favorite snack: prunes. She is a guilt-inducing role model for senior citizens.

But since 2013, Ginsburg has been rebranded by a fan base that sees her as feisty, funny, and up-to-date. The phenomenon started when she issued her fierce dissent from the court’s 5–4 decision to kill the Voting Rights Act. Two young digital strategists in Washington wanted to pay tribute, and distributed stickers with an embellished painting of Ginsburg, in her black robes and big glasses, with a sketched-in white crown and the slogan “Can’t Spell Truth Without Ruth.” They also put it on Instagram. In New York, a young law student, Shana Knizhnik, posted the image on Tumblr with the title “Notorious RBG,” playing on the contrast between the pugnacious 300-pound rapper Biggie Smalls, who died in an unsolved drive-by shooting on the streets of L.A. at the age of 24, and the judicious Jewish grandmother who has spent much of her life on the mean streets of the Upper East Side.