News of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's surgery to remove cancerous growths from her lung rattled Washington as the city prepared for the holidays this week. Why do her health concerns send Americans into a tizzy?
On Friday, the high court announced that Justice Ginsburg underwent surgery after malignant nodules were discovered during a hospital visit earlier this year after she suffered fractured ribs in a fall. The reaction from the liberal corners of social media was an instantaneous mixture of well-wishes and barely-suppressed horror.
"All I want for Christmas is a healthy RBG," wrote film director Jennifer Siebel Newsom.
Others were grateful that doctors discovered the cancerous growths in November, when Justice Ginsburg took a spill in her chambers at the US Supreme Court and fractured three ribs.
"If RBG didn't fall and break her ribs they may never have found these cancerous nodules in her lungs," another Twitter user wrote. "Sometimes even bad things work out for the best."
After her fall last month, late night television host Jimmy Kimmel introduced the "Ruth Bader Gins-bubble" on his programme, saying the 85 year old needed to be "protected at all costs" as a Ginsburg stand-in rolled on stage encased in a gigantic plastic bubble.
Anxiety surrounding the health of the oldest sitting justice is a constant in liberal America. If she were to retire or become too ill to serve, President Donald Trump would be able to cement the court's conservative majority with the appointment of his third justice, after Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Beyond that, the outpouring of concern can be credited to the fact that for liberals, Justice Ginsburg has become a bona fide icon. She's the subject of a new biopic On the Basis of Sex, a documentary, and a bestselling book called Notorious RBG, which re-introduced her to a generation of millennial women. It's now possible to purchase T-shirts and coffee mugs with her likeness on them.