Thread by @egavactip

This is a thought-thread about the Supreme Court, though confusingly at first seemingly about something else entirely.

In antebellum America, issues related to slavery trumped party politics for most Southerners. Slavery, and the social system built on top of it, was perceived as under dire threat (it was under threat, but the perception was more dire than the reality). One of the main problems

was that at the time slavery was seen largely as being geographically delimited--leaving aside projects like annexing Cuba, slavery's expansion was limited. But the expansion of slavery was crucial merely for the survival of slavery, in a political sense.

The reason for this is that with the advent first of abolitionism, then of Free Soilism, the risk emerged that Southerners would no longer be able to protect slavery through Congress. Southerners were a distinct minority in the House, though aided to some extent by a two-party

system not aligned over slavery, but the key protection was in the Senate, where a precarious balance between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states existed. This balance rendered every issue involving the accession of a new state (bringing *new senators*) to be seen as

a zero-sum game, requiring obstructionism and "great compromises" to allow new states to enter without upsetting the balance all too precious to Southerners (as other solutions, such as nullification, had failed). This culminated in issues over Kansas and Nebraska, which

paralyzed the political system and, with Southerners especially perceiving themselves as having little other choice, led to intimidation, harassment, terrorism, and mob violence making the Capitol storming seem mundane. These1850s struggles moreover took place during a great

political realignment after the Whig Party was essentially replaced by the (free soil) Republican Party. All of a sudden, Southerners found every instrument for protecting slavery--the presidency, the Senate, the House--at risk. The only solution to this zero sum game seemed to

be to leave the table.

The reason I mention this all this is to make the point that there are two fiery zero-sum games going on in the US right now quite similar to the ones of the antebellum era. The first is over voting rights, because if one is in a political minority &

believes that a) one cannot change one's positions and b) one cannot live under the other side's positions, then the only option becomes c) making sure that more of your people can vote than the other side. But even more important than that is the zero-sum game over the Supreme

Court today, perceived by both sides as absolutely essential to preserving key positions or gains and protecting them from the other side. Every justice who coughs becomes an object of attention. Having and maintaining a majority on the court becomes all important--indeed, so

much so that some might increasingly countenance maneuvers that before would have been deemed unacceptable, such as simply refusing to allow a nomination even to proceed, for over a year, or "packing" the court to regain a majority. There are only so many justices, they have

incredible power, and they serve for life, subject only to impeachment. Each one of these justices is a potential Bleeding Kansas. And as the nation polarizes more, things will get worse regarding the Supreme Court. I'm pessimistic anything can truly be done to solve this problem

as long as we are so divided. But I think it is possible to take measures to reduce the impact that any one justice has on the Supreme Court, so that each transition does not necessarily become a rush to the barricades. The obvious solutions involve diluting the power of any one

justice (through a non-partisan increase in the total number of justices) and shortening their length in office (to, say, 10 or 12 years). With these and other similar measures, the retirement or death of a single Supreme Court justice will have much less individual significance

because the other side can say, "Well, this creates a short term imbalance against us in the court, but then Justice X's term will be up pretty soon and we may be able to get someone in then." Note that my suggestions here are not designed to result in a more liberal or more

conservative court but rather simply to lessen the otherwise growing chance that at some future date we could erupt in mass civil unrest--or worse--over the issue of the replacement of a single Supreme Court justice.