Several weeks ago, the main air conditioning system for our house went out. It was about 20 years old, and had faltered late last summer and needed coolant added, so it really wasn’t a big surprise. But we had to get it replaced, something that was both disruptive and fairly expensive.

About the same time, the toilet in our basement guest bathroom began to run if not flushed precisely. Because it is not a bathroom used everyday, we noted, but ignored, the problem, just being careful when we or guests used it.

Last week, our master bathroom toilet began to run continually, and we needed to call a plumber, and had him look at both bathrooms while he was here. The guest bath now seems fixed, but the upstairs bath has already had a second visit and now looks like it will need a third, as the toilet seems to have a mind of its own.

On the same day, the gasket that surrounds the freezer of our refrigerator/freezer came loose, and we needed to call someone to come out and fix it; that fix seems to have been successful.

On the very next day, our microwave oven stopped heating our food. The light goes on, the plate spins round, the timer works perfectly, the food stays cold. It looks like we need a new microwave.

And we have other problems that need fixing. The shower door in the master bath has become unhinged, we have brick walks that need caulking, and flagstones that need leveling. We have yet to get to these projects.

Why do I tell you all of this? Because as you hear news about what is happening in our country, it seems so familiar. It just seems like our house writ large. In both cases, ignoring the problems are impossible and dangerous, so fix them we must.

For the Democratic Party to continue to support its presumed presidential nominee, Joe Biden, is similar to our ignoring the things in our house that need repairing. For our house, we would have a much harder time living without air conditioning, a freezer, convenient toilets, and a microwave. For our country, it would be difficult to live with a Republican President starting in January, particularly if that president is Donald Trump.

There are many reasons for that, as we now know. One of the most important reasons relates to which president will have the right to nominate our next Supreme Court justices. Ruth Bader Ginsburg did not retire, when suggested, so that Joe Biden could appoint a replacement; she waited until she died during the Trump presidency. It has been suggested that Justices Kagan and Sotomayer (the oldest liberal justices) resign now to give President Biden the right to nominate two younger justices; they find this suggestion ludicrous. If Trump regains office in January, most likely he will have the opportunity to nominate new conservative justices to replace the elderly Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, thus securing the strong conservative majority in the court for years to come.

We are already seeing what an activist conservative Court can do, parading under the false flag of originalism, and this does not need to be repeated here. But a few principles must be noted: (1) this Court has no trouble upending precedent, thus changing the Supreme Court’s practice for well over a hundred years, (2) by ending the Chevron doctrine (that provided that deference be paid to executive agencies’ decision making when ruling on the acceptability of regulations), the conservative Court has given to itself even more authority than it has had to decide whether regulations issued by the Executive Branch will stand, and (3) the Court continues to narrow the rights of individual citizens in all sorts of ways, but perhaps most importantly in health related circumstances, and to be able to live freer or the possibility of gun violence. In other words, the non-elected judges are setting the Judiciary up as the strongest of the supposedly independent branches of government, giving itself the right to judge the conduct of the other two without accountability.

I hope that Joe Biden will not become another Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I hope he has the strength to determine (difficult as it may be) when to fold and go back to Delaware, when to turn the government over to a new and younger and more agile and energetic generation. For if he fails to see this, and to act upon what he sees, he will most likely still turn the government over in January – but not to someone who will celebrate and build on his positive legacy, but who will destroy it and who will most likely destroy or degrade us (330 million Americans, and more worldwide) in the process.