We've heard the same thing about Obama's appointments, Bush, and Clinton before him. The sky is always falling, but in reality the courts have been surprisingly stable and politically neutral -- a testament to the United States' governing principle of judicial independence.
We had a more balanced court in the past. Thomas and Scalia were previously on the court's fringe, but now with Amy Coney Barrett the fringe is pushed to crazytown. Pair that with the conservative majority, and you have a recipe for partisan hackery.
I think people have a poor understanding of just how far to the right the median American is on the issues the Supreme Court regularly handles. Remember, the majority of American support school prayer, think abortion should be illegal after the first trimester, and think that race shouldn't be a factor in college admissions or employment. Even in the latest Gallup polls, only 37% of Americans think the current Supreme Court is "too conservative": https://news.gallup.com/poll/4732/supreme-court.aspx
(1) That's a pretty selective survey. Do you deny that I could generate a list of issues the Supreme Court has heard, all on the left side of the American political spectrum, that the majority supports?
(2) Public opinion polls on issues, as opposed to candidates, are essentially meaningless.
Yes, sure, though primarily economic issues—Obamacare, campaign finance, etc.
Opinion polls on issues are important, because two-party politics distorts the signal of what the public really wants. That’s an especially bad problem in America, because race/immigration status splits both the social conservatives (many minorities are socially conservative but caucus with white liberals) and the economic liberals (many white people are economically liberal but caucus with white conservatives).
Abortion is a good example: in both parties the abortion debate is dominated by extremists. If you look at parties, it seems like the country is divided between two extreme positions. But in reality there are lots of pro choice republicans and pro life democrats. And there is actually a broad consensus that abortion should be permissible, but only in the first trimester. Another good example is affirmative action. The Democratic Party establishment loves it, but many democrat voters don’t. Thus, something like Prop 16 fails in California resoundingly even with the nearly universal support of Democratic politicians in an overwhelmingly democratic state.
Of course the exact same things can be said for republicans. The Republican establishment is in love with repealing universal healthcare, while many Republican voters like it.
When we think about the legitimacy of the Supreme Court vis-a-vis the will of the people, it’s important to keep public opinion polling in mind. In the next term, the Supreme Court may will outlaw race-based affirmative action in college admissions, and uphold a 15 week abortion ban. The media will treat both as far right extremism, but both decisions will in fact reflect the popular will.
It's not that the idea of an opinion poll isn't important, it's that they simply don't work. Even when the poll isn't sponsored by a partisan organization (in which case the poll will come out however the pollsters want it to), issues polling is plagued with biases; it's very difficult to design questions whose polled answers generate any insight.
Candidate polling is at least tied to a single concrete action that the respondent will actually take. It's not great, but you can learn stuff from it.
But that’s my point. The median American has heterodox beliefs.
The current 6-3 Court probably seems “far right” to the 8-10% of people with consistently liberal beliefs (https://hiddentribes.us). But the median voter agrees with the conservative Court on many issues, and disagrees on others. More people think the current court is too conservatives than who think it’s too liberal (it’s a 6-3 court after all) but the plurality (40%) think it’s “about right.”
I’d also point out that, while the median voter may support same sex marriage, they probably go to a church or mosque that does not approve of homosexuality. Amy Coney Barrett may seem like an “extremist” to someone from NYC or SF. But she probably doesn’t seem that way to an immigrant from Latin America, where charismatic Catholicism is prevalent and growing. Likewise, the median voter may support gun control, but they or a neighbor probably own a gun.
Women are struggling for the right to abortions in much of the latin world. Violent radical feminists are way more of a thing in Mexico.
Religious principles should not be used as a basis for government unless those principles could also be shown to be logical and beneficial in their own right. The government was set up with a separation between church and state for a reason.
Same sex marriage is perhaps the area where conservatives are most out of the mainstream. Its a red meat issue for republican politicians who have made anti-gay laws a focus of the most recent legislative dockets across conservative controlled state legislatures, but something like 70% of Americans support same sex marriages. My guess is it backfires on them.
Similarly, liberals underestimate gun ownership. Handgun ownership is at an all time high, across demographics. Black women are leading the surge in new hand gun ownership. And anyone who spends even a second investigating gun violence understands that its handguns that cause almost all of the damage of gun ownership. Liberals are tying themselves in knots trying to find ways to ban semi-automatic rifles while their constituents buy high capacity concealed carry pistols in droves. Its going to cost them as well.
This seems like a round about way of saying that our current voting policies over emphasize the fringes at the expense of the middle. But isn’t that widely accepted?
