We treat Supreme Court seats as political footballs and the Presidency as a winner-at-all-costs proxy war because ultimately -- in the literal sense of finally -- meaningful politics only occurs in the national government, and only in those two branches.
Our states are provinces of the national government rather than co-equal sovereigns with limited exceptions, and Congress is a money dispenser and executive stamping/blocking mechanism that does theater for the plebes.
The left half of our political spectrum began this project but by God we've all gone along for the ride to get ours from time to time.
In the same way we all become Manichaeans in all but name every four years, we all know that a man who might rule over us from the Council of Nine for the rest of his natural years is a great guy/a horrible rapist, just depending on whether he'll likely turn his power on us.
Give me time and I might change my mind about the worst part of this, but for now, it's that we're a profoundly silly people who cannot manage the level of self-honesty required to admit it to anyone, even if we're pretty good at calling our opponents far worse.
