Joseph Fishkin —
There’s a lot for liberals to despair about these days and the Kavanaugh appointment sharpened several sources of that despair. After such an intensely partisan fight about the Court, and especially after the remarkable, norm-shattering partisan performance of the Justice himself at his final confirmation hearing, some of the liberal worry is inevitably focused on questions about the Supreme Court. Should “we” favor more judicial restraint, more “taking the constitution away from the courts,” more strategies of challenging the Court through politics? These are important questions; there’s much more to say about them. (Indeed I will say more about them, with my coauthor Willy Forbath, as they relate to the project of our book.) But these questions may not be the most urgent ones right now, with an election weeks away. The most urgent ones, I think, have to do with the specter of the possibility that an emerging American majority—racially diverse, young, and well to the left of the current government on both economic and social issues—may face the prospect of living for a considerable period, perhaps much of our lives, under minority rule.
