Generational Makeup of the Supreme Court

[sbarrera]

(04-13-2022, 03:27 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Generational change doesn't mean much in politics. Only Party, and ideological shifts. Brown-Jackson's appointment does not change the Supreme Court's ideological makeup.

Interesting though, the complaint against FDR's Court when he threatened to pack it was that the justices were too old. Now the complaint you are making against Biden's Court, as threats to pack it are made again, is that the justices are too young.

The same problem applies, regardless. The conservative majority is stuck in the past. The "legal precedents" that may be overturned are liberal ones, which are oriented toward justice and solutions for the future. The new trend, already under way for a number of years, will be not just to keep the law as it is, but to reverse it and bring it back to the past when it favored the rich, the powerful and the prejudiced.

I think the generational change does make a difference. The Silents leaving and Gen X becoming nearly half the court - all of which happened over just the past 5 years - means that long-standing precedents are going to be upended.