Generational Makeup of the Supreme Court

[David Horn]

(04-15-2022, 11:52 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(04-13-2022, 04:12 PM)sbarrera Wrote:

(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.

It could happen, although they would be liberal "precedents" most likely, because of the ideological make--up. If the Gen Xers on the Court were liberals, then those precedents would not be upended. So it seems ideology and political party is the factor involved, if they overturn such precedents. What counts is how many justices were appointed by Democrats. That's only three now. Six were appointed by Republicans. Old-cohort Boomer Trump appointed three of them.

Most folks today discount the importance of political parties at the very time when they are the most polarized and powerful. Another fact: five of the Republican justices today were appointed, in effect, by the electoral college, a system created in part to placate southern slave-holding states. It still placates them.

What do Gen Xers favor as a generation?  They certainly abhor conflict that affects them and their families, so liberal advances they see as threatening are going to trigger a response.  Will democracy itself fall into that bucket of unacceptables?  Perhaps, if it feels too threatening.  Classic-Xer is a perfect foil in this instance.  His complaints have little to do with legalities and everything to do with grievance.  I doubt he's atypical of his generation -- not entirely, at least.  If the white-middle-class bias in our system gets a serious challenge, assume the worst.