They've Seen Enough: Democratic Voters Are All In On SCOTUS Expansion
There's growing recognition that fixing the Supreme Court is the only thing that matters
A lot of political data makes me hopeful these days. Every day I feel like the Vince McMahon meme as I scroll through new batches of numbers showing Democrats competing in unthinkably red parts of the country ahead of the midterms.
Nothing, however, makes me quite as hopeful as data illustrating widespread public yearning for a Supreme Court that hasn't been designed in a lab to ratfuck democracy in the United States. That's exactly what I found in a recent Liberal Currents poll: Nearly seven in ten backers of Democratic candidates want the next Dem president to expand the damn Court and crush the right-wing majority that functions as the judicial arm of the Republican Party. Only one in ten said no, we're good with a radicalized SCOTUS. I'm trying not to dwell on that.
I would appreciate if the good Bad Faith Times subscribers and readers don't sue me for blog-related whiplash here. It was about a month ago when I stumbled across recent polling data that made me groan for seven straight hours: Support for expanding the Court among Americans likely to support Democrats had inexplicably decreased since 2019, along with a number of foundational reforms we're going to need if we are to crawl out of this competitive authoritarian pit of shit.
The reticence to fix the Court was baffling for me, as it was for a bunch of folks on Bluesky who could not understand a Democratic electorate that wasn't ready to address the only institution that really matters. My most generous take was that folks didn't really understand what it meant to add justices to the Supreme Court, or how that might impact their lives. Maybe, I thought, folks would get onboard with court reform/expansion if pro-democracy advocates and Democratic leaders made it a point to connect their everyday struggles with the oligarch servants on the Roberts Court.
The Liberal Currents polling showed splits among the Democratic base, perhaps unsurprisingly considering the size of the party's tent as so-called independent voters run screaming from a Republican Party that has no place in a functioning democracy. There is one point of consensus though.
"The demand that unifies the Democratic Party’s base in 2026 is simple: oppose the Trump administration and impose consequences for the rampant lawlessness they have observed for the past two years," Liberals Currents writer Chance Phillips wrote.
To achieve this – to ensure the people who have committed crimes against the country pay a steep price – you're going to have no choice but to add (at least) a handful of pro-constitution justices to the Supreme Court. There is a zero point zero percent chance anyone from the second Trump regime will be held accountable for their nakedly criminal behavior if there remains a 6-3 right-wing SCOTUS majority after Trump. The criminals know this. It's a big part of why they keep doing crimes: They know Uncle John Roberts will look out for them.
Denny Carter
Not a single one of the six conservative justices would so much as consider allowing elected Democrats in the legislative and executive branches to follow the law and prosecute Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth and the president and his criminal underlings, including his eldest son, practically an agent of the Russian government. We know this because these same justices – with Trump out of power and possibly having to reap after so much sowing – created some absurd precedent under which constitutional law does not apply to the president.
Sounds monarchical to me, but then again I've never been to law school.
Democratic Party backers, per the Liberal Currents polling, also want new economic policies designed to make life in the US a little less back-breakingly expensive. This presumably would include a range of laws and federal policies that would run afoul of the SCOTUS majority's preferred economic setup in which twelve guys have all the money and everyone else fights to the death for the pennies falling off the rich guys' money pile and is one medical emergency away from homelessness.
There isn't one progressive economic proposal that could survive the current Roberts Court majority. Not one. We know this is true because we watched the Court spring into action and tell the Biden administration that it could do absolutely nothing to ease the crushing economic burden on student loan borrowers. These SCOTUS freaks were one vote away from killing the Affordable Care Act, one of the most conservative healthcare laws in the developed world.
Denny Carter
If you want a more stable economy in which you can afford the occasional hotdog at a little league game and maybe even one of those fancy coffees you used to drink, you're going to need a pro-constitution SCOTUS majority, a high court that will fall in line with the rest of the U.S. judiciary and not make laws from the bench because – a Neil Gorsuch once said – it's too hard to make laws the old-fashioned way (constitutional) way.
If you want collective bargaining to ever again have teeth in the US, a new SCOTUS majority will be necessary, one that doesn't make rulings based on their stock holdings.
If you want a somewhat cleaner environment with luxuries like breathable air, you're going to have to neutralize the Supreme Court's 6-3 right-wing majority, one that will kill any green executive or legislative policy as soon as it's implemented.
Democratic voters must understand this headed into 2028: The current Supreme Court will shred any law designed to make life in the US even moderately better. They will never let you have a better life, and there's no Democratic congressional majority big enough to counter that without Court expansion and reform. According to these recent polling numbers, that message is seeping through the cracks of the daily outrages that consume our attention. That's good. Elected Democrats can work with that – if they want to.
Follow Denny Carter on Bluesky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.
