Justices of the Supreme Court have repeatedly claimed that the decisions about what cases to decide and how to decide them are not affected by politics. Justice John Roberts said in his confirmation hearing that he is like an umpire, not a batter. Justice Neil Gorsuch said that justices are not like “politicians with robes.” Shortly after her confirmation, Justice Amy Coney Barrett told an audience that her goal was “to convince you that this Court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks.” The justices are not convincing the American people. Favorable ratings of the Court have declined dramatically, according to numerous polls. This fall, a Gallup poll found that 58% of Americans “disapprove” of the job the Court is doing, which aligns with the 60% who disapproved of overruling Roe. A substantial majority have lost faith in the Court’s vaunted impartiality and believe it is too affected by “politics.” A Quinnipiac poll conducted after the Dobbs leak in May of last year found that 63% of Americans believe the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics. A Yahoo poll around the same time found that 74% believe the Court is “too politicized.” The Court’s wounds are entirely self-inflicted. It has a far-right agenda and the scholarship informing its decisions is often questionable. Worse, new details have come to light of relationships some justices have had with wealthy ideological soulmates, including those with interest in cases before the Court. The Court’s credibility and the public’s acceptance of its decisions depends upon trust that it is not subject to outside influence. While lobbying may be common and acceptable in the legislative and executive branches, it is not — nor ought not to be — conceivable in courts. Similarly, in New York State Rifle and Pistol Assn v. Bruen, the Court twisted the text of the Second Amendment and misrepresented the history of firearm regulations in England, the colonies, and this country to justify invalidating virtually all state regulation of gun possession. The decision entirely ignored the harm to human life that it will cause, as well as the relevant history of firearms regulation and outright prohibition, but it was a victory for conservatives as well as for the gun lobby, which had donated multiple millions to the cause. None of them complains about hypocrisy. The Supreme Court is running the risk that it will lose its credibility and its decisions will no longer be accepted by the majority of Americans. In an interview last year, Professor Laurence Tribe put it succinctly. The danger, he said, is that if the court “becomes so headstrong and so out of touch with modern reality and so unwilling to listen effectively to counterargument and so agenda-driven and so committed to its, really, alternative facts,” then it’s likely people will eventually “start defying what it says.” He warned that point is getting closer.. https://afj.org/article/how-the-supreme-court-is-destroying-its-own-legitimacy/
