The appointment of a new US Supreme Court justice will inflame the culture war, it is feared. This is hopelessly optimistic. Whoever replaces the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg will decide on more than abortion and the right to bear arms. She (President Donald Trump pledges to name a woman) will also determine Washington’s power to regulate business and provide services. “God, guns and gays” was never a fair digest of US politics: the distributional questions that absorb other democracies engage this one too.
The coming schism will be as much economic as moral. The stakes go beyond the permissive society to encompass the welfare state. A lasting rightwing hold on the court could damage the left’s most cherished achievements.
But then it could also injure the court. Achieving a 6-3 majority on the bench would crown half a century of work by organised conservatives. The movement knows with ominous clarity the liberal reforms that its judges must erode or undo. What should trouble it more is their popularity with the public.