“The greatest acts of American history are when people have the authority to do something, but they showed the restraint of power and did not use the authority. This is one of those moments, where that is the kind of grace that can stop this tumbling of this institution further toward what I think will be a real constitutional crisis … We do have common virtue, we do have common values, we have common cause … But we are doing this and failing as a body to lead in a time of crisis. This is not happening in a vacuum … it is happening in a time of terrible crisis for our country. I am appealing right now, that we have to find a way to stop this. The only thing that heals this body is revival of civic grace.” So argued Cory Booker on the final day of the Barrett confirmation hearings. He’s right, but even he knows that won’t change much. McConnell says he has the votes. Here’s the latest from WaPo.

+ “She very obviously wants to distance herself from the president by saying she owes him nothing, because the president has evinced nothing but contempt for the courts, the rule of law, for women and people of color. But she can’t say any of that. And so she has swathed herself in a cloak of neutrality and asked, repeatedly, that we take her word for it that her integrity alone will protect us. The tactic has largely worked for her, until she found herself refusing to answer a question as basic as ‘Should the president accede to a peaceful transfer of power?’ or ‘Are absentee ballots important to democracy?’ That’s when her wide-open mind doesn’t disserve just her, but democracy itself.” Dahlia Lithwick: Amy Coney Barrett Won’t Say Trump’s Obvious Lawlessness Is Lawless. (Like so many stories these days, this one isn’t about a distinct event, it’s about a broader threat to democratic norms.)

+ Biden campaign halts Kamala Harris’ travel after two people in campaign’s orbit test positive for coronavirus.