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The Supreme Court can no longer explain itself - Ian Millhiser @ Vox
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Vox
The legal profession is much like a priesthood; both lawyers and theologians interpret a central text, be it the Bible, the Quran, the Gita, or the Constitution. We bury ourselves in canonical commentaries on that text. And we are all supplicants to beings much more powerful than ourselves.
Which explains why I’ve spent the past few years contemplating what happens when God goes mad.
The Supreme Court wrapped up its most recent term during a bizarrely haphazard celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday. And it has struggled to articulate a coherent vision of the Constitution no less than President Donald Trump has struggled to keep the National Mall’s reflecting pool clear during that celebration.
The Court isn’t just the most powerful institution in the United States — the only body capable of overriding both Congress and the president. It is supposed to be the caretaker of something sacred and eternal. As Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote, the whole purpose of a written constitution is “to prevent the law from reflecting certain changes in original values that the society adopting the Constitution thinks fundamentally undesirable.”
That is, the Constitution fixes in place certain rights and governmental structures that are not supposed to change just because someone loses an election or because a few seats on the Supreme Court change hands. The right to free speech, the rule establishing that people born in the US are Americans, and the idea that all Americans, including the president, are subject to the same laws are abiding principles that should survive a change in administration or in the Court’s makeup.
But this Court does not simply overrule foundational precedents so often it is difficult to keep track; its work is increasingly illegible to people — even lawyers — who do not share the Republican justices’ values. I am grateful that I no longer practice law, because one of a lawyer’s primary duties is to advise clients on whether something they plan to do in the future is legal. And this Court’s interpretations of the law are often too opaque and unpredictable to allow lawyers to advise clients on what the law will be tomorrow.
Which explains why I’ve spent the past few years contemplating what happens when God goes mad.
The Supreme Court wrapped up its most recent term during a bizarrely haphazard celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday. And it has struggled to articulate a coherent vision of the Constitution no less than President Donald Trump has struggled to keep the National Mall’s reflecting pool clear during that celebration.
The Court isn’t just the most powerful institution in the United States — the only body capable of overriding both Congress and the president. It is supposed to be the caretaker of something sacred and eternal. As Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote, the whole purpose of a written constitution is “to prevent the law from reflecting certain changes in original values that the society adopting the Constitution thinks fundamentally undesirable.”
That is, the Constitution fixes in place certain rights and governmental structures that are not supposed to change just because someone loses an election or because a few seats on the Supreme Court change hands. The right to free speech, the rule establishing that people born in the US are Americans, and the idea that all Americans, including the president, are subject to the same laws are abiding principles that should survive a change in administration or in the Court’s makeup.
But this Court does not simply overrule foundational precedents so often it is difficult to keep track; its work is increasingly illegible to people — even lawyers — who do not share the Republican justices’ values. I am grateful that I no longer practice law, because one of a lawyer’s primary duties is to advise clients on whether something they plan to do in the future is legal. And this Court’s interpretations of the law are often too opaque and unpredictable to allow lawyers to advise clients on what the law will be tomorrow.
"Many of the Court’s recent decisions seem designed to convince Dems that the justices are acting arbitrarily, and that they are motivated entirely by partisanship. Those justices should not be shocked if the next time Democrats are in power, they do something about it." www.vox.com/politics/494...
— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser.bsky.social) 2026-07-03T14:51:38.703Z