Thread by @Yascha_Mounk

This moment makes me so sad and angry that I find it difficult to think clearly. But I fear that (the manner of) Kavanaugh’s confirmation has a slew of huge implications for our politics.

Here’s my attempt to make sense of a few of them.

(Thread.)

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Kavanaugh is innocent. If that’s the case, his anger is certainly understandable. But even then, the blatant partisanship he displayed yesterday makes him eminently unfit to sit on the highest court in the land.

2/n

This will go a long way in destroying whatever remains of SCOTUS’ legitimacy.

After today, how can anyone believe the Supreme Court will make nonpartisan rulings on gerrymandering cases? And why on earth should we respect its decision in another Gore v. Bush scenario?

3/n

This will make it hard for Dems to resist the temptation to pack the court.

Between Garland and Kavanaugh, the argument that its current composition is illegitimate is strong. And yet, court-packing is exactly the kind of constitutional hardball that destroys democracies.

4/n

Trump and the GOP are now more fully aligned than ever. Our country’s partisan divide runs even deeper. The mutual hatred and incomprehension is even more acute.

It’s very, very difficult to picture the path that could possibly lead us out of this nightmare.

5/n

But insofar as the court is concerned, the fact that it is now an obviously partisan institution suggests two fixes.

6/n

The first is to limit the terms for which judges are appointed.

These limits would have to be short enough so these confirmation battles aren’t existential yet long enough to preserve a counter-majoritarian effect. 15-20 year terms might balance those competing objectives.

7/n

The second is to limit the scope of decisions the Supreme Court takes.

We need SCOTUS to check the authoritarian tendencies of demagogues and to ensure that fleeting majorities can’t violate the ground rules for our common life laid out in the constitution.

But…

8/

…the more areas of pubilc policy courts decide, the harder it is to sustain their political independence. And once the Supreme Court is composed of nine partisans making decisions about the most important issues in the country, it no longer has any democratic legitimacy.

9/

But of course it’s very unlikely that either of these changes will ever take place until or unless we all realize we’re staring at the abyss, and have a real moment of national reconciliation.

Not a likely prospect right now.

10/

Three last observations.

First, it is of course a little convenient for liberals like me to advocate a limited role for courts the moment conservatives take definitive control over them.

11/

Second, liberals should reflect self-critically about whether they should have taken arguments against the overreach of the judiciary more seriously in the past (just as conservatives should not forget all of those arguments now that they are politically inconvenient.)

12/

Finally, any hope that Republicans might stand up to Donald Trump if he fires Mueller or violates the constitution in a blatant manner should now be out of the window.

The fate of our republic depends on 2018 and 2020.

13/

Tl;dr: Things are very bad. And they're likely to get worse.

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