There’s a very good reason the radical left hates the current ideological composition of the U.S. Supreme Court: since they are rarely in a legislative majority, they need to have control of the Court to impose their radical agenda on America.
Recall that in 2012, left-wing commentators were crowing about the coming “progressive era” in government. But over the next decade, Republicans eventually took over 61 state legislative chambers to the Democrats’ 36. Donald Trump’s election in 2016 led to the Supreme Court majority that conservatives currently enjoy and the inglorious end of the “progressive era.”
While the “progressive era” proved to be a mirage as far as legislative victories go, the left still had the federal courts to impose their will — until Trump was able to name not only three Supreme Court justices, but also 54 judges for the United States courts of appeals, 174 judges for the United States district courts, and three judges for the U.S. Court of International Trade. Trump also named twelve circuit courts of appeals judges.
Since 2020, decision after decision challenging left-wing orthodoxy on abortion, religious freedom, and the power of the executive has largely gone the right’s way. And Trump’s judges have been in the thick of the arguments that have challenged the left’s supremacy on cultural issues.
Rarely in American history have one president’s judicial choices so impacted our society. And regardless of what people think of Trump personally, there is little doubt that his choices have shaped the courts for at least the next decade.
Recent decisions reveal a Supreme Court in near lock-step with the majority of the American people on several issues.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll late last year showed that Americans supported banning colleges and universities from considering a student’s race and ethnicity in admissions, 63 percent to 36 percent. Even nearly half of Black Americans (47 percent) and Democrats (47 percent) said they supported such a ban.
A recent AP-NORC poll showed a nearly polar-opposite result. But most polls generally show Americans more opposed to than supportive of affirmative action policies, often by wide margins. That includes a Pew Research Center poll last month showing that Americans disapproved of such policies 50 to 33 percent, and a CBS News-YouGov poll last month showing that Americans opposed using race in admissions 70 to 30 percent.
Even more remarkable is the evolution regarding support for religious conscience exemptions to supplying services for gay weddings.
A year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, a Pew Research Center poll showed Americans were about evenly split on whether businesses that provide wedding services should be able to refuse to serve same-sex couples if they have religious objections. In another poll, in 2018, Americans said by a 2-to-1 margin that it would be wrong and discriminatory for a florist to turn away a customer because the flowers were for a gay wedding.
But when Pew asked a similar question earlier this year, it showed Americans favored a business’s ability to refuse services 60 to 38 percent — a result in line with the Supreme Court’s decision. This time, Pew in its question referenced how a business might “object to providing services in situations where this could suggest support for beliefs about lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) issues that they have personal or religious objections to.”
Even forgiving student loan debt — an issue that had nearly 2-1 support last year — was much closer, with a near-even split between those who supported Biden’s plan and those who opposed it.
In the past, the left could almost always count on being able to jawbone the Supreme Court into doing what they wanted. The myth that SCOTUS doesn’t read the newspapers was blown up in Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong’s Supreme Court exposé, The Brethren. The high court not only reads the newspapers, but they also follow politics religiously.
Related: Court Hands Down A MASSIVE Victory for Freedom on the Fourth of July
It’s not that big of a legal stretch for the Court to have ruled the way it did in recent cases. In fact, it wasn’t any stretch at all to recognize the Constitutional rights at stake in the decisions. On the other hand, some decisions applauded by the left have used pretzel logic to come to conclusions they support.
How much longer the right will benefit from Trump’s historic term is open to debate, but with a 6-3 majority on the high court, the era of conservative jurisprudence won’t end anytime soon.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member