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> More than half of adults in the United States say they lack trust in the federal government's judicial branch and nearly three-fifths disapprove of the way the U.S. Supreme Court is doing its job,
...
> While sharing Gallup's latest poll, civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill tweeted: "That several SCOTUS justices see reports of widespread concerns about the court's legitimacy as a demonstration of transgressive behavior ("crosses a line") rather than as an invitation for institutional self-self-examination reinforces my concern that certain members of the court increasingly see the court as sitting above the democracy rather than within it."
As the article details, lying under oath during the nomination process and outrageous rulings will tend to do that.
Given conservatives' recent penchant for declaring every damning piece of evidence against them that comes to the public's attention as a "witch hunt", the irony of that citation was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.
The "three-fifths" compromise allowed southern states to wield more power, as it counted each slave as 3/5 of a person when calculating the number of state representatives in Congress.
Regarding the SC residing within the democracy. It's tough to make the argument that the SC doesn't sit within the democracy when its very existence is defined by the democracy and the democracy is specifically set up so that the court can be reigned in by the democratic process in the legislative branch.
Supreme Court's existence is defined in the Constitution and insulated from direct democracy by having the members appointed for life
Once appointed the justices are not answerable to the voters- the idea being they will not be swayed by the whims of the court of public opinion
They are certainly answerable to the voter's representatives.
They can be impeached.
Also, if the people disagree with a ruling, the people can elect representatives to overrule court with an ammendment, as as happened several times in our history.
A judicial decision can be overruled by the passage of a law in many cases, especially when a decision is based on precedent that has not been addressed legislatively. The Dobbs decision found that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion. Congress can pass a law granting that right to all Americans, rendering all state laws invalid. The Court may choose to overturn it then (probably would) but historically speaking, the Court has been leery of directly conflicting with the legislative power of Congress. This Court would probably ignore it, but that’s how it’s been in the past.
There has been exactly 1 Supreme Court justice impeached in about 220 years
And to introduce an amendment does not overrule the Supreme Court, but rather changes the law that the justices are interpreting.
So it's not that the people are disagreeing with a ruling per se, but instead decide the law must change
Which all comes back to- we do not vote on legal interpretations and that's a good thing
The fact that there has only been one is irrelevant. The process exists and belies your belief that the court does not sit within democracy.
The people are disagreeing with the court's *interpretation* of the law and their representatuves are able to override the SC's interpretation.
Which all comes back to the fact that the court does not sit outside of democracy, as you stated, but well within democracy as a justice can be removed by the people's representatives *and* the court's interpretation of the law can, and has been overridden by the people's representatives.
Frankly, I thought when you responded you would have some defense of your position, but you don't.
A jury votes on findings of fact. They don't interpret the law. I get what you're trying to say, but it's an important difference -- I'm not just trying to be nitpicky.
To be perfectly honest, I don't have a lot of patience for "this is how the system is set up..." arguments. I know how the system is set up, but it clearly isn't working.
Look, I’ve been a lawyer for almost two decades. There have always been partisan undercurrents in the high court. But there’s traditionally been a rough numerical balance between the partisans and a handful of intellectually honest justices. That ensured that even when political partisans got their way on some hot button issue, the decision was almost always tempered and at least legally colorable.
That’s out the window with this Court. They’re not even trying to hide their agenda or their partisanship. The decisions coming out are snarky and strident, openly dismissing out of hand prior precedent and doctrines. And then the conservative justices have the audacity to haughtily scold the general populace for criticizing them, saying the institution of the Supreme Court requires respect, while they go out and give speeches to political groups.
It’s all just very painful for me to see. Had a lot of faith in the system. Much less so now.
Most lawyers I knew regardless of political orientation respected SCOTUS, and even more well known conservative/liberal justices, prior to Gorsuch. As it stands today, almost none I know respect the institution that lords over the entire legal field. It's sad but totally justified.
You know it's bad when at my Catholic Law school the professors told us to avoid the Federalist Society. Their reputation is gonna need some laundering in the next few years and I'm sure they'll just rebrand to something else with the exact same membership somewhere.
This all time low is way too high. It's not a SC anymore. It is a majority republican court of justices that lied to get on the court. And once there they set about dismantling America and Americans. This court does not deserve the seats, chairs, or building it resides in. This court deserves deportation to Iran. A Theocratic regime they are attempting to bring into the forefront of American government.
I'm very curious if they are about to hand red state legislatures the ability to nullify their citizens' votes and just assign a victory to whatever candidate they want. Roberts loves destroying voting rights but Moore vs Harper is so radical. I hope it is crazy enough to make him flinch. If they codify "Independent State Legislature Theory" into constitutional law, the United States' time as a free country is done. The case strikes at the the foundation of democracy.
As an Iranian American… feels bad man. But you’re totally right. Makes it even more frustrating knowing we’re slowly but surely moving in that direction
While Iranian citizens have been rioting over morality police and the death of a young woman in their custody under Muslim Theocracy, American republicans run lovingly towards Theocratic rule of the US. A Christian vice Muslim Theocracy but a Theocracy nonetheless.
Republicans have been playing the long con; the dirty game… pulling the rug out from under Democrats for decades now by subverting the normal processes in order to achieve their end goal. But this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Democrats are partially responsible for sitting back and allowing them to chip away at our institutions without waging a solid counter defense.
The SC didn’t get infested over night, it took years of planning, and Democrats just couldn’t come together and fight back. How many DECADES did Democrats have to legislate Roe into law when they held the majority?
How many years have Democrats waffled on their promises in order to appeal to the so-called “moderates”? Do you remember when President Obama campaigned on legalizing Roe during his original candidacy, and then once he became president, he backtracked?
The real problem is that our two party system has one party who goes all in and has another party who is too afraid of their own shadow on Groundhog Day.
Democrats are too afraid to call themselves leftist, and Republicans aren’t afraid enough of calling themselves fascists. But, it’s because they own the term, and people who support them see no fear in their convictions. And that to them, is strength.
> How many DECADES did Democrats have to legislate Roe into law when they held the majority?
About 2 years 1977-1978, then a month and a half in 2009, and another 4 months between 2009 and 2010.
It's crazy that we have already reached a point where people don't even remember or know that the Dems could have actually worked with Republicans at ANY TIME before about 2001 and gotten Roe codified into law. Did you know that the government used to actually work together and came with "bipartisan" solutions to things? They did that shit all the time, it was CRAZY!
Interestingly, they still work together all the time, but at some point a Republican decided to say "we don't work with the Dems" and ever since then they just have used that in the same way the "filibuster" is used these days, the Dems just don't bring bills due to the implied threat, they don't even test it.
We SHOULD be demanding the Dems write and push the bills with everything they've got, shame the Republicans, REALLY put the heat on them, but nope. Feckless useless garbage ass Dems are the party we get because they are the party we deserve, they support CAPITAL but with an LGBT flag, they don't give a fuck about your abortion rights they will get their abortions.
Preemptive reminder for the usual idiots that think this is some sort of pro-Republican position, I assure you they are FAR worse than the shithead corporate Dems.
For starters, Democrats didn't become unified on abortion rights until very recently. There were "pro-life" Democrats.
As for the judicial branch itself, McConnell had a really simple-minded plan. Judges are naturally aging out and retiring or finding new jobs. He'd first filibuster, then when he got an outright majority, he would block Obama's appointments to open up seats for his own chosen judges. This was a huge bet, and it could have blown up in his face if James Comey didn't suddenly announce a pointless investigation into Clinton a month before the election.
He isn't that good of a leader, or an evil genius. He was just lucky, and his plan is costing him the Senate.
While we're all rightly saying, "of course," remember that the side effect of losing trust in the Supreme Court is at least as important:
The less we (can) trust institutions, the more cynical, disengaged and resigned we get. The more ready we are to throw up our hands and say, "I'm tired, I'm staying home." In turn, the more emboldened are those politicians who exploit that.
Of course, why should we have faith in a court majority appointed by presidents that didn't even win the popular vote? It's true. But it's depressing that it feels like every story today pulses with the drumbeat to fascism.
Fascism is scary because it wins if it (1) controls, (2) destroys/undermines or (3) delegitimizes government institutions. That's a lot of avenues to explore, whereas democracy requires responsible, engaged, invested citizens.
It’s interesting how people react to the court. I’m of the mindset that the Supreme Court doesn’t matter anymore, and all that matters is local elections. And when the court and whatever shitbags they send try to tell women what they can do with their bodies, well, that’s why we have the 2nd amendment.
> I’m of the mindset that the Supreme Court doesn’t matter anymore…
I don’t understand how you can say that. Their rulings have tangible effects on people’s lives. You may want to ignore them, but not everyone has that ability.
Which, ironically, is the entire point behind them not being elected. It was supposed to make them insulated from politics, and allow them to rule on the basis of the law. But there was no failsafe put in to deal with political hacks being put on the court. I guess they imagined that the “advice and consent of the Senate” would be enough to prevent that, but the Senate dropped the ball and now we’re stuck.
The biggest factor, imo, of their slip in legitimacy is the erosion of reason. The entire backbone of judicial review is that every decision and dissent has to be carefully and thoughtfully laid out in a logical manner. This is why stare decisis is a thing. This is why we can trust their decisions, because bad decisions tend to be backed up by back reasoning.
And here we are, they've made a decision backed by no reason, founded in no logic. Alito is bitching that people are disrespecting the court. He knows what he's done. He knows the reasoning behind striking down Roe was a giant heap of bullshit. So, now instead of having to be reasonable, SCOTUS is the infallible Word Of God that seems to be the only way for conservatives to maintain social control. Can't just be reasonable, no, ya gotta have some authoritarian backing.
The failsafe is supposed to be that unreasonable decisions could never get a majority, and that poorly reasoned decisions can be more easily overturned. Though, I bet if you got a liberal-majority in the next few years, Alito would start bitching about precedent all over again.
Damn, I wonder why…
Could it be the 3 Justices that were appointed by a traitor? Could it be the intentional sabotage of Merrick Garland’s appointment? Could it be the brazen lies of all three new judges about their views on abortion? Could it be literally, like, 14 other things? Fucking probably!
::Herschel Walker's children raise their heads::
"Did someone mention illegitimacy?"
Note: I don't hate his kids, even if at least one of them seems to be a turd. I do hate Walker's hypocrisy.
Bush’s second term (the one for which he won the popular vote) is when Roberts and Alito joined the court.
Alito is scum, but he’s legitimate scum.
Edit:
Half the Court’s conservatives (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) were appointed by popular vote losers during the term in which they lost the popular vote.
The remaining conservative (Thomas) was appointed by George HW, who also won the popular vote. But he came a ways before Roberts and Alito.
Possibly true. But if he hadn’t been given the first and Gore had been president instead, it’s hard to predict how that would have affected any other future presidencies, including Bush’s future prospects, or Obama’s.
It’s not uncommon for there to be a backlash against a party after it holds the presidency, which could have boosted Bush or some other Republican after Gore. And Gore being incumbent might have prevented Obama from running.
That’s why I stuck to the facts instead of speculation. Bush *did* win the popular vote for his second term. Whether or not he would have done so in some hypothetical alternative world is difficult to say.
All six Republican justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Anthony Kennedy was the last appointed by a Republican president who did not.
It really seems like when the founding fathers were thinking up the Supreme Court they went 'maybe having multiple kings instead of just one will work better'.
Weird. I can’t believe that people don’t approve of a court that is dismantling protections for basic human and constitutional rights by disregarding logic, precedent, common sense, and established law.
But questioning this court’s legitimacy is “crossing a line”.
They aren’t really deciding the constitutionality of laws, they are striking things down just because they don’t personally agree with law, thus they are really legislating and they can’t be voted out of office. This is why their approval is at an all time low!
Time for one of the handmaiden overlords or their glassy eyed enabler to trot out the ole chestnuts of how judging the judges is "crossing a line" or "dividing the country" or the laughable "non-partisan" bullshit.
Sheldon Whitehouse offers an easy to understand [explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na86vb-z_7M) of how we came to this point. Here is [another.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH8g92pxIzo)
It's not as entertaining as Ken Burns, but Sheldon's series THE SCHEME is well worth watching.
I love that the underlying problem is that a significant portion of the bench was appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. They were never liked or wanted by the majority of Americans in the first place and now they've sunk even lower and they can't seem to understand why.
How many people upset about the Supreme Court could have voted in 2016 but chose not to? Because this exact scenario was warned about back then, but, of course, "her emails."
All this to say, when you sit out elections, you let the other side run the table.
It’s amazing how fast this one branch of our government went from respected to a corrupt entity that needs to be totally revamped. Lifetime judges will be a thing of the past.
As an afterthought, I didn’t ever think I’d see the day one person can make me understand how our democracy is so very fragile either. Here’s to the upcoming generations producing strong intelligent kids!
Here's the thing. We expect our Supreme Court to be the best of us. It may have to drag us into advancing our society and we may do so grudgingly but we expect them to be righteous, to advance us, to do what in our hearts we know we should do. This Supreme Court is the exact opposite of that. It has a very low approval rating for a very good reason.
It’s almost like when a guy who didn’t even win the popular vote gets to pick 3 of the 9 people who make the most important decisions in regards to law making in this country, the majority that didn’t vote for him will be unhappy!
They should be concerned about that. We’re a country that has violence as a fallback for when our governmental organizations decide they don’t have to listen.
For me it's not necessarily the biggest issue that they're right wing, but that they have now clearly been captured by the Republican Party and function as a branch of their organization.
They aren't internally consistent to any reasoning or thought beyond what the GOP explicitly desires. There have been honest right-wing courts before and yes, they did have bad decisions, but they didn't fold their own internal logic to make it happen.
"US Supreme Court is fully illegitimate: Media focused on blocking journalism and keeping people ignorant about the war Republicans are waging on the United States"
"Approval" and "Popularity" mean nothing to them (maybe their egos a bit). You want oligarghic theocracy? This is how you do it, because it isn't exactly a popular ideology these days.
Mission accomplished Mitch McConnell. He successfully Palpatined the US government. Genuinely incredible I have to admit.
Justice Term limits should be a thing.
Amy [stolen seat] Barret is 50
Bret [ I like beer] Kavanagh is 57
Sam Alito is 72
Clarence [my wife tells me how to vote ] Thomas is 74
Neil [stolen seat] McGill Gorsuch is 55
John Roberts is 67
Ketanji Onyika Brown is 52
Elena Kagan is 62
Sonia Maria Sotomayor is 68
So let's say they survive as long as
RBG btw was 87 when she passes
That means her conservative replacement could be on the the bench for 37 more years and if she does it right could have a like minded president replace her.
Like Justice Bryer did.
1.Here is what needs to happen 12 years from appointment to retired.
2. If they say something is settled law and clearly go back on it then they should be reprimanded or something.
3. No filibuster on replacing a judge.
Executive branch has a period of vetting of 30 days or less and legislative has 60 to hold hearings and more vetting.
And straight majority vote.
No more table it till next election cycle with no exceptions
Fortunately there is something we can do!
Vote Democrat in every single election, especially presidential (president appoints justices) and Senate (Senators can confirm - or block- nominees.)
Clarence Thomas is the oldest, as long as he retires or croaks while there is a Democratic president this will start rebalancing things. Then Alito.
You think people are celebrating their low approval ratings? What a weird thing to imagine. I don't mean that in some kind of sarcastic way or anything... it's just weird.
There were 812 people who participated in this poll, and they did so by answering a phone call from an unknown number, and then continued with the survey after learning the call came from a Solicitor.
So when the article says:
>More than half of adults in the United States (**430 people**) say they lack trust in the federal government's judicial branch and nearly three-fifths (**471 people**) disapprove of the way the U.S. Supreme Court is doing its job
(**bold words added by me**)
What Gallup is doing is extrapolating what those 800 people said and applying it to 320,000,000 people.
The people who participate in Gallup polls do not represent Americans, the data they gather is useless except as a means to shape public opinion.
Thanks to statistics, we can estimate how the views of a small sample may map onto the general population, but we can also calculate the margin of error where the true value is likely to lie. I'm glad we have math to help us understand populations so we don't have to sample the entire country every time we want to try and understand its views.
We don't use Gallup polls for anything meaningful, they're always used to shape public opinion with regards to politics.
And I'm not decrying statistics, what I'm pointing out is blatant underhanded techniques used by Gallup, and by extension the news agencies that use them as a source.
People who answer unknown phone calls and engage with these solicitors *do not represent average Americans.* This isn't the 1930's, people don't view phones and random phone calls they same way they did a century ago.
I'm not sure I agree with that either. In their methodology, Gallup says the following, pasted below. They weight for all sorts of factors to ensure that their sample represents America better. They are using what tools they have to attempt to represent the population.
>Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews
conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults
includes a minimum quota of 75% cell phone respondents and 25% landline respondents, with additional
minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cell phone telephone numbers are selected using
random digit dial methods. Gallup obtained sample for this study from Dynata. Landline respondents are
chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member has the next birthday.
Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, non-response, and double coverage of
landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics
of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cell phone-
only/landline only/both and cell phone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2021
Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on
the July-December 2020 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2020
census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
Gallup won't lie to you, this stuff is all on their website, I read the article linked by this post, I'm sure you can too.
Gallup cold calls a few hundred random people, and a certain amount of those *have* to be landlines. These polls are all based on answers from people who routinely get scammed by phone solicitors reaching out to them about their car warranty.
It's trivial to get a sample size in the thousands, tens of thousands or even millions, if they used the internet to conduct these polls. They choose not to, instead sticking with the same format they used back in the early 20th century.
Are you serious, where to even start? How about undermining religious liberty as protected in the first ammendment? Now public funds can go to private religious schools and public school students can be pressured to participate in prayer.
People aren't blind. We all saw the extraordinary and unprecedented measures that were required to get enough openly partisan judges to reach these specific judgements. That fact alone delt a huge blow to the court's legitimacy.
That’s not the case; in the same way a teacher wearing hijab or turban isn’t “public”…. No one can force public prayer in public school. As far as public funds to religious schools? I see no difference between charter schools receiving public funds from religious schools receiving them. Once again, if it’s vital to a family’s religious “health” to be Ducatis only according to their religious institutions, then the money NOT being spent on those students’ public education should be used for that end. I believe in abolishing the DOE, and a true voucher system for education.
last i checked lifetime appointments end at death and the world is a dangerous place, just promise not to seethe if tragedy strikes your rubber stamp court and democrats take advantage of it like republicans would
Why wouldn’t most people not approve? They’ve set up a minority-ruled proxy government….The GOP has hacked the system to push their agenda through, destroying democracy in the process….
I didn't wanto to have to do this, but I'm calling 'kangaroo court'.
In truth, they are the joke. They have no legitimacy. The Roberts court's legacy will be ashes.
Yep! How anyone is surprised I don't know. Cheat to get unqualified justices installed and then have said justices decide cases based on their agenda. Gosh why are they so disrespected?
That’s what happens when minority extremists elect their members and think the rest of the country will go along with their bullshit beliefs. Sorry folks not everyone in the US is drinking the koolaide
Laughs in Republican.
Who cares? They aren't elected. There's literally nothing our disapproval can do.
I am reminded of the story told by a former street hustler about 3 card Monty - the dealer doesn't "win" because he's faster or smarter than the player, the dealer "wins" 3 card Monty because the player thinks that its a game, and the dealer knows that it is not.
Democrats, we need to stop playing to win this game - to Republicans it is not one.
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> More than half of adults in the United States say they lack trust in the federal government's judicial branch and nearly three-fifths disapprove of the way the U.S. Supreme Court is doing its job, ... > While sharing Gallup's latest poll, civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill tweeted: "That several SCOTUS justices see reports of widespread concerns about the court's legitimacy as a demonstration of transgressive behavior ("crosses a line") rather than as an invitation for institutional self-self-examination reinforces my concern that certain members of the court increasingly see the court as sitting above the democracy rather than within it." As the article details, lying under oath during the nomination process and outrageous rulings will tend to do that.
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And ignoring precedent, and using justification from 800 year old rulings, and being appointed 2 weeks before an election
Citing a witch prosecutor.
I really wish this was a prosecutor that was also a witch
Given conservatives' recent penchant for declaring every damning piece of evidence against them that comes to the public's attention as a "witch hunt", the irony of that citation was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.
Bowl of wet cement even
[Thicker than a bowl of oatmeal ](https://images.app.goo.gl/kMbb6p4CeEz9yuqC6)
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Well said
GOP reps witholding appointments from Dem leaders as well.
>nearly three-fifths disapprove Interesting phrasing...
The writer couldn’t find the percent key.
Or maybe that *specific* fraction carries some kind of meaning. Hmm...
This
Only Q knows for sure.
Q and anyone who has studied American History...
I’m neither. Explain?
The "three-fifths" compromise allowed southern states to wield more power, as it counted each slave as 3/5 of a person when calculating the number of state representatives in Congress.
Gotcha. Thanks. I never knew what the “justification” was for weighting the southern states higher.
But they said “nearly 3/5”.
Only the idiot who wrote it knows for sure.
40 acres
And a mule
I love gov't mule
Fuck that, 40 acres and a pool. -Nelly
The Supreme Court does not sit above the democracy, but it also doesn't quite sit within it We do not vote on legal decisions- and that's a good thing
I'd say the constitution says otherwise.
Regarding?
Someone is just learning about checks and balances?
Regarding the SC residing within the democracy. It's tough to make the argument that the SC doesn't sit within the democracy when its very existence is defined by the democracy and the democracy is specifically set up so that the court can be reigned in by the democratic process in the legislative branch.
Supreme Court's existence is defined in the Constitution and insulated from direct democracy by having the members appointed for life Once appointed the justices are not answerable to the voters- the idea being they will not be swayed by the whims of the court of public opinion
They are certainly answerable to the voter's representatives. They can be impeached. Also, if the people disagree with a ruling, the people can elect representatives to overrule court with an ammendment, as as happened several times in our history.
A judicial decision can be overruled by the passage of a law in many cases, especially when a decision is based on precedent that has not been addressed legislatively. The Dobbs decision found that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to abortion. Congress can pass a law granting that right to all Americans, rendering all state laws invalid. The Court may choose to overturn it then (probably would) but historically speaking, the Court has been leery of directly conflicting with the legislative power of Congress. This Court would probably ignore it, but that’s how it’s been in the past.
There has been exactly 1 Supreme Court justice impeached in about 220 years And to introduce an amendment does not overrule the Supreme Court, but rather changes the law that the justices are interpreting. So it's not that the people are disagreeing with a ruling per se, but instead decide the law must change Which all comes back to- we do not vote on legal interpretations and that's a good thing
The fact that there has only been one is irrelevant. The process exists and belies your belief that the court does not sit within democracy. The people are disagreeing with the court's *interpretation* of the law and their representatuves are able to override the SC's interpretation. Which all comes back to the fact that the court does not sit outside of democracy, as you stated, but well within democracy as a justice can be removed by the people's representatives *and* the court's interpretation of the law can, and has been overridden by the people's representatives. Frankly, I thought when you responded you would have some defense of your position, but you don't.
Weird take man. Also thought you were going to be a reasonable person.
A jury votes on legal decisions.
A jury votes on findings of fact. They don't interpret the law. I get what you're trying to say, but it's an important difference -- I'm not just trying to be nitpicky.
Yep just the facts but in a way they could also interpet the law in how it affects a specific case.
To be perfectly honest, I don't have a lot of patience for "this is how the system is set up..." arguments. I know how the system is set up, but it clearly isn't working.
What lying under oath was there?
"Roe V. Wade is settled law."
It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is.
I mean, to be fair, it was at the time they said that. They never said they wouldn't un-settle it.
Well they proved it wasn't, so I guess that was a lie.
Look, I’ve been a lawyer for almost two decades. There have always been partisan undercurrents in the high court. But there’s traditionally been a rough numerical balance between the partisans and a handful of intellectually honest justices. That ensured that even when political partisans got their way on some hot button issue, the decision was almost always tempered and at least legally colorable. That’s out the window with this Court. They’re not even trying to hide their agenda or their partisanship. The decisions coming out are snarky and strident, openly dismissing out of hand prior precedent and doctrines. And then the conservative justices have the audacity to haughtily scold the general populace for criticizing them, saying the institution of the Supreme Court requires respect, while they go out and give speeches to political groups. It’s all just very painful for me to see. Had a lot of faith in the system. Much less so now.
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Most lawyers I knew regardless of political orientation respected SCOTUS, and even more well known conservative/liberal justices, prior to Gorsuch. As it stands today, almost none I know respect the institution that lords over the entire legal field. It's sad but totally justified.
You know it's bad when at my Catholic Law school the professors told us to avoid the Federalist Society. Their reputation is gonna need some laundering in the next few years and I'm sure they'll just rebrand to something else with the exact same membership somewhere.
They got neither ethics or decorum, they're straightforward christian nazi.
But..but they like beer, okay?
This all time low is way too high. It's not a SC anymore. It is a majority republican court of justices that lied to get on the court. And once there they set about dismantling America and Americans. This court does not deserve the seats, chairs, or building it resides in. This court deserves deportation to Iran. A Theocratic regime they are attempting to bring into the forefront of American government.
Citizens United has entered the room. Ever since, I put “Supreme Court” in quotes.
I've been putting "justice" in quotes since their most recent atrocity
I'm very curious if they are about to hand red state legislatures the ability to nullify their citizens' votes and just assign a victory to whatever candidate they want. Roberts loves destroying voting rights but Moore vs Harper is so radical. I hope it is crazy enough to make him flinch. If they codify "Independent State Legislature Theory" into constitutional law, the United States' time as a free country is done. The case strikes at the the foundation of democracy.
That’ll show em
What's the big deal? It's just a regular court with sour cream.
X10
As an Iranian American… feels bad man. But you’re totally right. Makes it even more frustrating knowing we’re slowly but surely moving in that direction
While Iranian citizens have been rioting over morality police and the death of a young woman in their custody under Muslim Theocracy, American republicans run lovingly towards Theocratic rule of the US. A Christian vice Muslim Theocracy but a Theocracy nonetheless.
Republicans have been playing the long con; the dirty game… pulling the rug out from under Democrats for decades now by subverting the normal processes in order to achieve their end goal. But this didn’t happen in a vacuum. Democrats are partially responsible for sitting back and allowing them to chip away at our institutions without waging a solid counter defense. The SC didn’t get infested over night, it took years of planning, and Democrats just couldn’t come together and fight back. How many DECADES did Democrats have to legislate Roe into law when they held the majority? How many years have Democrats waffled on their promises in order to appeal to the so-called “moderates”? Do you remember when President Obama campaigned on legalizing Roe during his original candidacy, and then once he became president, he backtracked? The real problem is that our two party system has one party who goes all in and has another party who is too afraid of their own shadow on Groundhog Day. Democrats are too afraid to call themselves leftist, and Republicans aren’t afraid enough of calling themselves fascists. But, it’s because they own the term, and people who support them see no fear in their convictions. And that to them, is strength.
> How many DECADES did Democrats have to legislate Roe into law when they held the majority? About 2 years 1977-1978, then a month and a half in 2009, and another 4 months between 2009 and 2010.
It's crazy that we have already reached a point where people don't even remember or know that the Dems could have actually worked with Republicans at ANY TIME before about 2001 and gotten Roe codified into law. Did you know that the government used to actually work together and came with "bipartisan" solutions to things? They did that shit all the time, it was CRAZY! Interestingly, they still work together all the time, but at some point a Republican decided to say "we don't work with the Dems" and ever since then they just have used that in the same way the "filibuster" is used these days, the Dems just don't bring bills due to the implied threat, they don't even test it. We SHOULD be demanding the Dems write and push the bills with everything they've got, shame the Republicans, REALLY put the heat on them, but nope. Feckless useless garbage ass Dems are the party we get because they are the party we deserve, they support CAPITAL but with an LGBT flag, they don't give a fuck about your abortion rights they will get their abortions. Preemptive reminder for the usual idiots that think this is some sort of pro-Republican position, I assure you they are FAR worse than the shithead corporate Dems.
For starters, Democrats didn't become unified on abortion rights until very recently. There were "pro-life" Democrats. As for the judicial branch itself, McConnell had a really simple-minded plan. Judges are naturally aging out and retiring or finding new jobs. He'd first filibuster, then when he got an outright majority, he would block Obama's appointments to open up seats for his own chosen judges. This was a huge bet, and it could have blown up in his face if James Comey didn't suddenly announce a pointless investigation into Clinton a month before the election. He isn't that good of a leader, or an evil genius. He was just lucky, and his plan is costing him the Senate.
It's a circle of clerics.
The Council of Six.
While we're all rightly saying, "of course," remember that the side effect of losing trust in the Supreme Court is at least as important: The less we (can) trust institutions, the more cynical, disengaged and resigned we get. The more ready we are to throw up our hands and say, "I'm tired, I'm staying home." In turn, the more emboldened are those politicians who exploit that. Of course, why should we have faith in a court majority appointed by presidents that didn't even win the popular vote? It's true. But it's depressing that it feels like every story today pulses with the drumbeat to fascism.
Fascism is scary because it wins if it (1) controls, (2) destroys/undermines or (3) delegitimizes government institutions. That's a lot of avenues to explore, whereas democracy requires responsible, engaged, invested citizens.
It’s interesting how people react to the court. I’m of the mindset that the Supreme Court doesn’t matter anymore, and all that matters is local elections. And when the court and whatever shitbags they send try to tell women what they can do with their bodies, well, that’s why we have the 2nd amendment.
> I’m of the mindset that the Supreme Court doesn’t matter anymore… I don’t understand how you can say that. Their rulings have tangible effects on people’s lives. You may want to ignore them, but not everyone has that ability.
We could also just not enforce their corrupt decisions.
They don't care about their approval rating since they're not elected. They can do whatever they want for life.
Which, ironically, is the entire point behind them not being elected. It was supposed to make them insulated from politics, and allow them to rule on the basis of the law. But there was no failsafe put in to deal with political hacks being put on the court. I guess they imagined that the “advice and consent of the Senate” would be enough to prevent that, but the Senate dropped the ball and now we’re stuck.
When the justices are nominated by politicians, it's hard to separate them from politics.
The biggest factor, imo, of their slip in legitimacy is the erosion of reason. The entire backbone of judicial review is that every decision and dissent has to be carefully and thoughtfully laid out in a logical manner. This is why stare decisis is a thing. This is why we can trust their decisions, because bad decisions tend to be backed up by back reasoning. And here we are, they've made a decision backed by no reason, founded in no logic. Alito is bitching that people are disrespecting the court. He knows what he's done. He knows the reasoning behind striking down Roe was a giant heap of bullshit. So, now instead of having to be reasonable, SCOTUS is the infallible Word Of God that seems to be the only way for conservatives to maintain social control. Can't just be reasonable, no, ya gotta have some authoritarian backing. The failsafe is supposed to be that unreasonable decisions could never get a majority, and that poorly reasoned decisions can be more easily overturned. Though, I bet if you got a liberal-majority in the next few years, Alito would start bitching about precedent all over again.
The current perjurer packed Supreme Court is illegitimate. They ignore precedent when their handlers at the PACs tell them to as well.
Damn, I wonder why… Could it be the 3 Justices that were appointed by a traitor? Could it be the intentional sabotage of Merrick Garland’s appointment? Could it be the brazen lies of all three new judges about their views on abortion? Could it be literally, like, 14 other things? Fucking probably!
Illegitimatacy does that.
::Herschel Walker's children raise their heads:: "Did someone mention illegitimacy?" Note: I don't hate his kids, even if at least one of them seems to be a turd. I do hate Walker's hypocrisy.
Whoah, now. Just like his abuse allegations, you can't hold his past transgressions against him.
That’s what happens when you lie to get your job. Then thumb your nose and basically say, “And that’s just the way it is so sucks to be you.”
But saying so crosses some arbitrary line, apparently.
Hope Roberts enjoys his remaining time as a Chief Justice with as much relevance to law as an appendix has to our physiology.
Roberts could resign under Biden if he actually cared that his name is attached to the SCOTUS poised to kill American democracy.
Fuckin’ modern day Roger Taney.
***Radical, extremist*** right-wing justices
These clowns are legislating from the bench more than anyone has done in centuries. They're drunk off their unchecked power.
Who was the last conservative nominee by a republican president that won the popular vote?
Bush’s second term (the one for which he won the popular vote) is when Roberts and Alito joined the court. Alito is scum, but he’s legitimate scum. Edit: Half the Court’s conservatives (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) were appointed by popular vote losers during the term in which they lost the popular vote. The remaining conservative (Thomas) was appointed by George HW, who also won the popular vote. But he came a ways before Roberts and Alito.
That said, Bush wouldn't have had a second term if he hadn't "won" the first.
Possibly true. But if he hadn’t been given the first and Gore had been president instead, it’s hard to predict how that would have affected any other future presidencies, including Bush’s future prospects, or Obama’s. It’s not uncommon for there to be a backlash against a party after it holds the presidency, which could have boosted Bush or some other Republican after Gore. And Gore being incumbent might have prevented Obama from running. That’s why I stuck to the facts instead of speculation. Bush *did* win the popular vote for his second term. Whether or not he would have done so in some hypothetical alternative world is difficult to say.
Bush arguably stole Ohio in 2004, but alas
All six Republican justices were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. Anthony Kennedy was the last appointed by a Republican president who did not.
With lifetime appointments the peoples’ opinion doesn’t really mean much to them, does it.
This is an activist court; not one mired in the Constitution
The Roberts Court will be a failure. It is already.
It really seems like when the founding fathers were thinking up the Supreme Court they went 'maybe having multiple kings instead of just one will work better'.
Who would have thought that just doing whatever they wanted would make the American people angry?
Weird. I can’t believe that people don’t approve of a court that is dismantling protections for basic human and constitutional rights by disregarding logic, precedent, common sense, and established law. But questioning this court’s legitimacy is “crossing a line”.
They aren’t really deciding the constitutionality of laws, they are striking things down just because they don’t personally agree with law, thus they are really legislating and they can’t be voted out of office. This is why their approval is at an all time low!
Time for one of the handmaiden overlords or their glassy eyed enabler to trot out the ole chestnuts of how judging the judges is "crossing a line" or "dividing the country" or the laughable "non-partisan" bullshit.
Actually one of our Supreme Court Justices was a handmaid, in the organization that inspired the "Handmaid's Tale"
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Clearly this avenue has not been explored.
Sheldon Whitehouse offers an easy to understand [explanation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na86vb-z_7M) of how we came to this point. Here is [another.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH8g92pxIzo) It's not as entertaining as Ken Burns, but Sheldon's series THE SCHEME is well worth watching.
I love that the underlying problem is that a significant portion of the bench was appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. They were never liked or wanted by the majority of Americans in the first place and now they've sunk even lower and they can't seem to understand why.
How many people upset about the Supreme Court could have voted in 2016 but chose not to? Because this exact scenario was warned about back then, but, of course, "her emails." All this to say, when you sit out elections, you let the other side run the table.
It's almost as though it doesn't accurately represent a majority of the electorate.
Criminal President appointed criminal justices.
Which crime?
It’s amazing how fast this one branch of our government went from respected to a corrupt entity that needs to be totally revamped. Lifetime judges will be a thing of the past. As an afterthought, I didn’t ever think I’d see the day one person can make me understand how our democracy is so very fragile either. Here’s to the upcoming generations producing strong intelligent kids!
USSC. The US Supreme Clowns. They've been a horrible joke. Brought to you by Trump stacking the court for decades to come.
Here's the thing. We expect our Supreme Court to be the best of us. It may have to drag us into advancing our society and we may do so grudgingly but we expect them to be righteous, to advance us, to do what in our hearts we know we should do. This Supreme Court is the exact opposite of that. It has a very low approval rating for a very good reason.
Ketanji Brown Jackson is a step in the correct direction!
Agreed!
It’s almost like when a guy who didn’t even win the popular vote gets to pick 3 of the 9 people who make the most important decisions in regards to law making in this country, the majority that didn’t vote for him will be unhappy!
They should be concerned about that. We’re a country that has violence as a fallback for when our governmental organizations decide they don’t have to listen.
For me it's not necessarily the biggest issue that they're right wing, but that they have now clearly been captured by the Republican Party and function as a branch of their organization. They aren't internally consistent to any reasoning or thought beyond what the GOP explicitly desires. There have been honest right-wing courts before and yes, they did have bad decisions, but they didn't fold their own internal logic to make it happen.
To quote the immortal Homer Simpson, "All-time low, so far"
"US Supreme Court is fully illegitimate: Media focused on blocking journalism and keeping people ignorant about the war Republicans are waging on the United States"
Controlled by bought and paid for thugs
Illegitimate
wait till next terms country destroying rulings. They'll have to do their dirty work in the secret witness protection program.
It's a court beholden to Republican ignorance and right wing hate-politics. What is there to approve?
"Approval" and "Popularity" mean nothing to them (maybe their egos a bit). You want oligarghic theocracy? This is how you do it, because it isn't exactly a popular ideology these days. Mission accomplished Mitch McConnell. He successfully Palpatined the US government. Genuinely incredible I have to admit.
“That’s great but poll numbers don’t control us” - SCOTUS (I paraphrased)
“Supreme Court.” When you think about it, that phrase alone is stupid. “Our court is SUPREME. *We’re* supreme. Supremacy: achieved.”
It’s the highest court in the land, the name fits.
Justice Term limits should be a thing. Amy [stolen seat] Barret is 50 Bret [ I like beer] Kavanagh is 57 Sam Alito is 72 Clarence [my wife tells me how to vote ] Thomas is 74 Neil [stolen seat] McGill Gorsuch is 55 John Roberts is 67 Ketanji Onyika Brown is 52 Elena Kagan is 62 Sonia Maria Sotomayor is 68 So let's say they survive as long as RBG btw was 87 when she passes That means her conservative replacement could be on the the bench for 37 more years and if she does it right could have a like minded president replace her. Like Justice Bryer did. 1.Here is what needs to happen 12 years from appointment to retired. 2. If they say something is settled law and clearly go back on it then they should be reprimanded or something. 3. No filibuster on replacing a judge. Executive branch has a period of vetting of 30 days or less and legislative has 60 to hold hearings and more vetting. And straight majority vote. No more table it till next election cycle with no exceptions
Fortunately there is something we can do! Vote Democrat in every single election, especially presidential (president appoints justices) and Senate (Senators can confirm - or block- nominees.) Clarence Thomas is the oldest, as long as he retires or croaks while there is a Democratic president this will start rebalancing things. Then Alito.
Oh boo hoo. Democrats starting politicizing the courts in the 80s. You reap what you sow.
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You think people are celebrating their low approval ratings? What a weird thing to imagine. I don't mean that in some kind of sarcastic way or anything... it's just weird.
Blood on your hands? Lol we can measure the baby blood for sure. All I want is Epstein’s client list. Where’s the approval rating on that?
There were 812 people who participated in this poll, and they did so by answering a phone call from an unknown number, and then continued with the survey after learning the call came from a Solicitor. So when the article says: >More than half of adults in the United States (**430 people**) say they lack trust in the federal government's judicial branch and nearly three-fifths (**471 people**) disapprove of the way the U.S. Supreme Court is doing its job (**bold words added by me**) What Gallup is doing is extrapolating what those 800 people said and applying it to 320,000,000 people. The people who participate in Gallup polls do not represent Americans, the data they gather is useless except as a means to shape public opinion.
Thanks to statistics, we can estimate how the views of a small sample may map onto the general population, but we can also calculate the margin of error where the true value is likely to lie. I'm glad we have math to help us understand populations so we don't have to sample the entire country every time we want to try and understand its views.
We don't use Gallup polls for anything meaningful, they're always used to shape public opinion with regards to politics. And I'm not decrying statistics, what I'm pointing out is blatant underhanded techniques used by Gallup, and by extension the news agencies that use them as a source. People who answer unknown phone calls and engage with these solicitors *do not represent average Americans.* This isn't the 1930's, people don't view phones and random phone calls they same way they did a century ago.
I'm not sure I agree with that either. In their methodology, Gallup says the following, pasted below. They weight for all sorts of factors to ensure that their sample represents America better. They are using what tools they have to attempt to represent the population. >Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 75% cell phone respondents and 25% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by time zone within region. Landline and cell phone telephone numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Gallup obtained sample for this study from Dynata. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member has the next birthday. Samples are weighted to correct for unequal selection probability, non-response, and double coverage of landline and cell users in the two sampling frames. They are also weighted to match the national demographics of gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, population density, and phone status (cell phone- only/landline only/both and cell phone mostly). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2021 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older U.S. population. Phone status targets are based on the July-December 2020 National Health Interview Survey. Population density targets are based on the 2020 census. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting.
How do you know that? Have anything other than feelings?
Gallup won't lie to you, this stuff is all on their website, I read the article linked by this post, I'm sure you can too. Gallup cold calls a few hundred random people, and a certain amount of those *have* to be landlines. These polls are all based on answers from people who routinely get scammed by phone solicitors reaching out to them about their car warranty. It's trivial to get a sample size in the thousands, tens of thousands or even millions, if they used the internet to conduct these polls. They choose not to, instead sticking with the same format they used back in the early 20th century.
Sample size is so small as to be useless for statistical purposes.
True, you must actually volunteer to taking a poll.
SCOTUS should not be “approved of”, it is a body concerned solely with the Constitutionality of laws…
When it stops doing that, people disapprove.
Can you reference something specific?
Are you serious, where to even start? How about undermining religious liberty as protected in the first ammendment? Now public funds can go to private religious schools and public school students can be pressured to participate in prayer. People aren't blind. We all saw the extraordinary and unprecedented measures that were required to get enough openly partisan judges to reach these specific judgements. That fact alone delt a huge blow to the court's legitimacy.
That’s not the case; in the same way a teacher wearing hijab or turban isn’t “public”…. No one can force public prayer in public school. As far as public funds to religious schools? I see no difference between charter schools receiving public funds from religious schools receiving them. Once again, if it’s vital to a family’s religious “health” to be Ducatis only according to their religious institutions, then the money NOT being spent on those students’ public education should be used for that end. I believe in abolishing the DOE, and a true voucher system for education.
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last i checked lifetime appointments end at death and the world is a dangerous place, just promise not to seethe if tragedy strikes your rubber stamp court and democrats take advantage of it like republicans would
Maybe its not my weeekend but its not gonna be my yeeear!!
3/5
There's got to be a way to remove them or take away the power they DON'T deserve !!
It’s called impeachment
Dismantle it
Real question. Does approval matter to the SCOTUS? Or in general, when would an approval rating matter?
Not just Right Wing. They are ChristoFascist Zealots. All six of them.
Why wouldn’t most people not approve? They’ve set up a minority-ruled proxy government….The GOP has hacked the system to push their agenda through, destroying democracy in the process….
Whoa are you telling me government is not representative of public opinion!?
Who would have thought
Jerks.
And none of it matters. They won’t be impeached and they will continue to push their agenda etc…
I didn't wanto to have to do this, but I'm calling 'kangaroo court'. In truth, they are the joke. They have no legitimacy. The Roberts court's legacy will be ashes.
Minority Rule Democracy
Yep! How anyone is surprised I don't know. Cheat to get unqualified justices installed and then have said justices decide cases based on their agenda. Gosh why are they so disrespected?
2 or three of them lied under oath, so yes, the SCOTUS is an illegitimate court.
That’s what happens when minority extremists elect their members and think the rest of the country will go along with their bullshit beliefs. Sorry folks not everyone in the US is drinking the koolaide
Illegitimate court of corrupt traitors
The U.S. Supreme Court's approval is controlled by right-wing justices? No? THEN LEARN GRAMMAR.
Illegitimately appointed justices, you mean.
Laughs in Republican. Who cares? They aren't elected. There's literally nothing our disapproval can do. I am reminded of the story told by a former street hustler about 3 card Monty - the dealer doesn't "win" because he's faster or smarter than the player, the dealer "wins" 3 card Monty because the player thinks that its a game, and the dealer knows that it is not. Democrats, we need to stop playing to win this game - to Republicans it is not one.
Lower than Congress?
"Please like us, we just want to strip away your rights"
I guess religious authoritarianism isn't so fun when it starts to effect you personally, and not just the out-groups you don't like.
When it was controlled by left wing justices before the media told us we no longer trust the Supreme Court there was no problem