Thread by @HNIJohnMiller

1) I refuse to talk about Bari Weiss. I'm not acknowledging it. I don't give two hot fucking shits about a jackass on a failing newspaper's editorial team leaving because a toxic shithole newspaper turned out to be filled with toxic shithole-dwelling people.

I wanna talk SCOTUS.

2) The current hot takes on SCOTUS whenever its decision day is 'ZOMG the court is divided!' followed by futile screams of petulant rage about whichever justice 'betrayed' the conservative cause.

JFC that shits so dumb.

Sometimes I feel like the only person that reads decisions

3) Did you know that the court is actually unanimous far more than it is contentious?

Seriously. I got into a debate and actually went in to dig out the numbers.

Here's a snapshot of the excel sheet I made.

PC=per curiam, aka 'we're busy to here's a quick unanimous decision'

4) The makeup in parenthesis next to the years shows the conservative and liberal justices; transition terms, you'll note, tend to have far higher numbers of Per Curiams, namely 2017 w/ Gorsuch, 2015 Scalia died, 2011 w/ Kagan, 2009 w/ sotomayor, 2005 when oconnor left

5) There are three assertions I make with regards to scotus decisions.

First, a 9-0 or an 8-1 is just as important and impactful as a 5-4. They carry the same weight, the same authority.

Second, a per curiam is effectively super-unanimous, i keep them separate b/c scholars suck

6) Third that an 8-1 and a 9-0 are virtually the same when judging unanimity and consensus. The number of single dissents tend to be the smallest of the different decision breakdowns each term, who the dissenter is varies wildly; you almost never see the same lone dissenter twice

7) It should be noted, that when you compare the 2 most recent full terms of 2018 and 2017 (we're still in the 2019 term so I didn't include it in this chart) the conservatives on the court are no more divided than they were in the 2006 and 2007 terms when they had a 7-2 majority

8) 'BUT MUH ROBERTS!' you caterwaul.

No one remembers John Paul Stevens, appointed by Gerald Ford, who dissented CONSTANTLY from the conservative majority. Seriously, he dissented more in the 2006 term than Ginsburg and Breyer each did.

Or Souter, by HW, who nearly did as well

9) Is Roberts perfect? No. But demonizing him does quite literally nothing. He's already resigned himself to being just a footnote in history, the presiding chief justice of the Roberts Court which became a literal clown car at times.

But is the SCOTUS in horrid shape? No.

10) Maybe I'm weird, seeing SCOTUS as an institution that needs to be respected, which I have to constantly reconcile when Kagan starts making fucking pop culture references in her opinions she writes. Seriously. I'm not saying I wouldn't make just as many. But I'm not on SCOTUS.

11) For every decision one justice or another 'betrays' us on, there's several times more that they were solidly in our corner that were utterly ignored.

But then, I don't pay attention to hyperbolics, i read the decisions themselves. So I'm just weird.

/end