Last year, Americans’ confidence in the Supreme Court hit its lowest point in half a century, and it’s hardly a wonder why: With the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the court continued to move sharply to the right, thanks to a conservative supermajority. That Americans are unhappy with the long-esteemed institution, and don’t agree with many of the decisions it makes, likely has much to do with the fact that despite Democrats winning the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, Republicans have appointed six of the nine current Supreme Court justices. This term, that court has cut the EPA off at the knees when it comes to keeping water clean, and is poised to render decisions that could end affirmative action, wipe out Joe Biden’s student-debt relief plan, and radically reshape how election are run. (It has also surprised by upholding a Native American adoption law and, as one Reuters columnist put it, maintained “an already-dire status quo for minority voting rights” in Alabama.) But the decision with perhaps the biggest, most far-reaching consequences vis-à-vis democracy? That’s still to come.
This week, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice and author of the new book The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America, joins Vanity Fair executive editor Claire Howorth and politics correspondent Bess Levin to discuss all this and more on Inside the Hive.
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