The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America

Waldman believes that the United States and its Supreme Court are separated by a widening gap, with lifetime appointees on the bench entrenching what is a distinctly minority view among the citizenry. The Court’s legitimacy is therefore threatened, and a broader political crisis looms. Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections, but Republican presidents have chosen six of the nine current justices. Without a crucial swing vote to be won over, the tenor of the Court has changed. In the last two years, the six-person supermajority has embraced a radical view of originalism divorced from history or tradition that would tie the country to the views of property-owning white men who lived at a time when leeches were considered state-of-the-art medical care. Instead, at a time of rapid demographic and cultural change, Waldman argues that the country has to be able to see the Constitution as a living, modern document. The book takes readers through a brisk history of the Court’s past highs and lows and then, in some detail, through three momentous decisions of 2022: abortion rights, gun rights, and the government’s ability to protect public health and safety and address climate change.