Cover illustration by Adam Johnson for the New York Times bestselling “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik.

The death of Ruth Bader Gisburg is blow. Especially right now, as we are attempting to wrestle this nation from the grip of misogynist white supremacy and stop the slide into authoritarian government. RBG represented a strong voice—although sometimes a lone voice—for justice in the highest court in our nation.

For several years, RBG was the lone woman on the court. Her dissenting opinions were critical to holding a perspective of justice and a reality check during times when distorted worldviews of racism, sexism, and other oppressive attitudes prevailed in legal decisions. But she represented more than just the sum of her work on the court. According to Angelique Ashby, Sacramento, CA Mayor pro Tempore, “Her whole life was about taking what she was given and making it count for more than herself….She taught because no one would hire her, despite her extraordinary academic achievements. She used losing arguments as love letters to the future.”

This weekend, I was in a zoom taping for a Bay Area Book Festival panel with Annalee Newitz, who was making connections between her feminist time travel novel and RBG. Annalee talked about how RBGs dissenting opinions serve to disrupt the timeline of our nation by speaking against the official story. How, centuries, even millennia from now, anyone could read those opinions and conclude that the people of this era did not all share the opinions of those in power.

Not only were RBG’s her opinions often ahead of her time. She was the rarest of rare in her generation, a brilliant woman who actually got the support she needed and deserved to fulfill her potential despite her decision to marry and have children.

We miss her already. We wanted all our best fighters to continue living and breathing as we enter this November battle for the soul of our nation. We didn’t want or need to enter the new pissing contest about whether the new or old president should fill the court vacancy. God willing that the new and old president will be different people. We were already feeling scared. This adds to the pressure, increases the danger, compounds the depth of our heartbreak in a moment where our hearts are already heavy.

RBG wasn’t perfect, though. And sometimes she wasn’t as intersectional of a feminist as some of us would have liked, including some questionable calls on issues of race. Consider the possibility that we might actually want and need justices on the court who are more progressive than RBG.

Some are sharing worst case Republican scenarios of how this could reshape the court for decades. Yes. It could. But we are forgetting our basic civics lesson. There are three branches of government that have checks and balances on each other. For twelve of the past twenty years, we have had to function with a right-wing president, an out-of-control vicious Republican senate, and painfully moderate Democrats in leadership who wouldn’t take bold stands. In that era, the supreme court was our last hope for a broken system that continually created policy that did NOT reflect the will of the people. But we are moving out of that phase in the legislative branch of congress. Progressives are winning in the house and the senate.

RBG passed away on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. And it is no coincidence that RBG was a Jew. In the Jewish community, deeply held traditions of social justice combine with an acute awareness of oppression from ongoing anti-Semitism that has been targeting the community for centuries. Because of this dual history, Jews have often emerged as leaders among the white community in pursuit of social justice. Even though she wasn’t perfect, RBG was a strong example of that tradition.

Even as we grieve over her passing, we need to look to the future. If we win big enough in November and the next two to four years, we can have the hearings we need to get Kavanaugh removed from the court. We can abolish the filibuster. We can win a Green New Deal. We can defund police. We can pass other legislation to remedy some of the damage the court has done. And if we win big enough, we can pass constitutional amendments that fill the loopholes that the right wing has used to undermine social justice at every level. We can get women and Black folks and immigrants to be legally defined as human instead of corporations.

The supreme court is the branch of our government that is the slowest to change. So by all means, do your grieving for this tower of strength. But we can push for justice in all the areas where we do have control. I look forward to the day when an elderly Clarence Thomas is writing the dissenting opinions to cases that are wins for our movements. And instead of being like RBG’s letters to the future–imagining what our nation could be–Thomas’ writings will be odes to the past. His dissenting opinions could reflect old sexist, racist, queer/transphobic and classist opinions that are long outdated and no longer reflect our nation’s reality, neither public opinion nor policy. Which is why November is not just about Biden/Harris. Yes. By all means, check that box. But we need to get our people voting all the way up and down the ballot. We want those progressive senators, congresspeople, governors, mayors, assemblypeople, city councilors and school board members. Those folks will be in training to move up until the entire US government looks like the people of the nation. This is our battle. This is our moment to rise. RBG is still with us—as an ancestor. She stood up for years. It’s our turn to stand up now. And it’s our turn to win.