Demonstrators over the weekend appeared in front of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) home in an attempt to put pressure on him to not go ahead with the Senate nominating process for a new Supreme Court justice following Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death.
Photos showed a few dozen protesters in front of his home in Louisville, Kentucky.
Meanwhile, a number of celebrities and verified Twitter users made veiled threats of violence.
“Over our dead bodies. Literally,” former CNN host Reza Aslan wrote in response to a Twitter post saying McConnell intends to fill Ginsberg’s seat. “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire [expletive] thing down,” he also wrote.
“We’re shutting this country down if Trump and McConnell try to ram through an appointment before the election,” wrote Beau Willimon, a Writer’s Guild of America president, to his 162,000 followers.
Katie Herzog, a podcaster, said she hoped McConnell suffered a stroke.
“All we can hope for in times like these is that Mitch McConnell has a stroke from laughing too hard,” she wrote, adding, “To clarify: I don’t want him to die. I just want him to be brain dead. I’m not a monster.”
“We have to be as tough as Mitch McConnell and not allow them to do one freakin’ thing until the election is over,” longtime actress and activist Jane Fonda said. “We have to rise up and not allow them to do it. If Mitch McConnell can do it, let’s grow some balls and ovaries. Oh, my God.”
Democrats began vehemently opposing the move to fill the seat before the election immediately following Ginsburg’s death.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump said he would nominate his selection despite Democrats’ objections. And, after conducting what he joked was a “very scientific poll” of the Fayetteville crowd as to whether supporters wanted a man or a woman, he declared the choice would be “a very talented, very brilliant woman.”
“We win an election and those are the consequences,” said the president, who then seemed to signal that he’d be willing to accept a vote on his nominee during the lame-duck period after the election. “We have a lot of time. We have plenty of time. We’re talking about January 20th.”
Two GOP senators, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), have signaled that they do not support nominating a judge to the Supreme Court ahead of the November elections. However, Democrats would still need to convince two more Republican senators to break the tie.
Ginsburg, considered a member of the liberal wing of the Supreme Court, died on Sept. 18 after several bouts of cancer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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