Frank's Musings

Ironically, the Court acted at the end of the 2022-23 term to set a few new precedents that contravened previous ones. Moreover, it is thought that the Chief Justice insisted on writing some of the opinions himself to soften the language that would have been used by the other five Justices in the majority (as reflected in their concurring opinions).

The opinions of the conservative super majority in the abortion, affirmative action, and First Amendment cases display how political the Supreme Court has become as a result of Presidential appointments during the Trump administration. That was a period of determined pandering to the resentful feelings of a minority of the voting public. Those citizens, of course, are entitled to their belief that the people who have often succeeded in tempering the government’s discriminatory actions have profited at the expense of those who think they are getting “the short end of the stick.”

This grudge really derives from their zero-sum philosophy of politics. The Republican Party they support has become beholden to the segment of society that believes that the national community overpays those who manage its affairs, including business executives, government regulators, academics, and providers of professional services. They see themselves, in the advertising lingo of W.W. Grainger, Inc., as “the ones who get it done.” They believe they would get things done more effectively, and possibly more lucratively, with no supervision from their “superiors.” 

\In fact, the structure of a liberal democracy, coupled with the pervasiveness of modern communications technology, facilitates a takeover by authoritarian rulers who can mobilize even a minority to take advantage of an outdated electoral system to install themselves in power.  Demagogues consolidate their control of a formal democracy by shaping the judicial system to favor changes to the established set of government principles that feed the prejudices of their supporters (cf. Netanyahu’s Israel). That is what the recent Supreme Court decisions referred to above do.