Eric Levitz of New York Mag asks, “Why is [Chief Justice] John Roberts so popular among Democrats?”
Earlier this month, Gallup gauged American sentiment toward 11 of the nation’s most prominent public figures. Only one boasted majority support from both Democrats and Republicans, and he happens to be the most effective conservative politician of the modern era.
During his tenure on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts has voted to gut the Voting Rights Act, ban limitations on corporate political spending, effectively legalize most forms of political bribery, rewrite the Affordable Care Act in a manner that cost millions of Americans access to Medicaid, restrict the capacity of consumers and workers to sue corporations that abuse them, nullify state-level school-desegregation efforts, sanction partisan gerrymandering, and carve gaping loopholes into Roe v. Wade.
And Roberts nevertheless retains the approval of 55 percent of Democratic voters (along with 57 percent of Republican voters) in Gallup’s new poll. No other official in the survey — not Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, either party’s congressional leadership, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, or Dr. Anthony Fauci — claimed majority support in both blue and red America.
That’s an easy one. It’s because most mainstream reportage about the SCOTUS is delivered in a reverent tone, like a high school chess club treasurer’s account of a grand master championship. Our mainstream media almost always depict SCOTUS arguments as rarified and abstract clashes among intellectual giants. As valued commenter Kay has pointed out, there’s little or no discussion of real-world consequences, i.e., the impact on people’s lives.
So we get overly credulous descriptions of nonsense like originalism and accounts of clever maneuvering around precedent and competing analyses over precedence blah blah blah. What we need is: “Hey, that means Southern states are free to impose poll taxes again,” or “Plutocrats can buy crooked politicians by the bushel now,” or “Your boss can order you to freeze to death in the cab of a truck or be fired,” or “There’s no longer a constitutional right to an abortion in Texas, so minor girls will be forced to give birth after being raped by their own fathers.”
I think this defect is at least partly explains Roberts’ popularity. Levitz leaves open the possibility that favorable perception of Roberts could change when the reality of the court’s radical right turn starts manifesting in people’s lives in ever more obnoxious and deadly ways. God, I hope so, but sometimes I’m convinced we’re a nation of slow-boiled frogs.
Open thread.
Baud
Roberts also happens to be the most reasonable of the Republican justices right now. Sad, but true.
Freemark
Agree with your take. I had friends who refused to vote in 2016 because they were tired voting for the ‘lesser of two evils’ blah, blah, blah. Media make it sound like the two sides aren’t really that different. Fuck those ‘friends’ and fuck the media.
Jerzy Russian
I agree with your take on the lack of plain-language discussion of the issues before the Court.
Also too, he is among the least odious conservative justices, not that is saying much.
Baud
@Baud:
As an example,
Roberts joined the libs in dissent in this ruling.
Baud
@Freemark:
From what I can tell from my small bubble, those forces are ramping up again for the mid-terms.
Baud
The more interesting thing in the survey is that Roberts’ support among Republicans is that low.
Mart
@Baud: He is always praised by the press for keeping horrible things just a bit less horrible, thus a savior of democracy. He ain’t got the numbers for that swing vote now.
Omnes Omnibus
Roberts really isn’t that much better than Gorsuch or Beer Boy. He just presents as more reasonable. Like Susan Collins.
WaterGirl
I am pre-mad before even reading. As soon as I saw the title i knew who it was going to be about. But any Der who thinks that Roberts is one of the good guys is someone whose judgment is impaired and whose ability to be discerning is non-existent.
Baud
@Mart: Yes, I agree. But the fact is, that’s not too far from the truth in this case.
Betty
As with many issues, the media wonders why the public views things a certain way when it is the very media that shapes the opinions of most people, especially those who don’t follow politics closely.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jurisprudentially, I’d say he’s a lot better than Gorsuch and a little bit better than Beer Boy.
ETA: He’s no where close to as good as any Democratic nominee or appointee to the bench, which is the thing to remember.
JPL
@Mart: He only gutted voting rights, because we had a black president. The RI legislator and her tweet about a black friend, brought back memories of Roberts statement.
Matt
Some folks are desperate to believe that “good Republicans” exist, because otherwise they’ve spent the last three decades conceding every argument to literal fascists and that would be Bad.
See also the constant chorus of “Liz Cheney isn’t that bad”, when she’s just as much of a fan of war crimes as her daddy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: His preference for hollowing out precedent just makes it take longer to get to the same place.
Mike in NC
USA Today has a front page article about “Moms for Liberty”, the right-wing organization that wants to Trumpify public school boards across the country. Where do these pinheads come up with these ridiculous names, like “Americans for Prosperity”? Apparently most of us are against prosperity.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think there are still a lot of Republicans who haven’t forgiven him for refusing to rule all of Obamacare unconstitutional.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus: Delay is good IMHO.
dearmaizie
Here’s why some Dems love Roberts – explanation courtesy of the incomparable Elie Mystal. Listen to the whole thing. Democrats who love Roberts just don’t see his long game. (Link opens in new tab.)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“COVID, which I do not support, is showing that Biden lied when he said he could control it with a combination of vaccine mandates and masking, which I also do not support. Democrats can’t deliver on this promise unless they can convince recalcitrant Republicans to take vaccines and use masks, and are thus completely (and predictably) failing to properly message mask and vaccine usage.”
– by Glenn Greenwald
Baud
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Baud
@Roger Moore:
I’m not sure if it exists, but I’d be interested in seeing a poll of his favorability over time broken down by party.
WereBear
@Matt: It is a scary fact that the widespread spite madness among the populace won’t be faced fir a while.
Hopefully before the midterms.
Old School
@Baud:
Baud at #6 meet Baud at #4:
Rusty
Roberts’ fingerprints will be soon enough over enough reactionary decisions that he won’t be able to hide his true self. He will be writing a lot of concurrences to those decisions, liking the outcome and offering meaningless fig leaves. “I wouldn’t completely overturn the precedent, I would just render it completely inoperative with this decision.” Most people will understand he agreed with the outcome and that is enough to lump him in with the more radical. Unfortunately the press will continue to trumpet the 5% of the time he doesn’t completely agree with reactionary orthodoxy, instead of the 95% of the time he does agree.
Patricia Kayden
Odd that a man who gutted the Voting Rights Act is “so popular” amongst Democrats. His comments about racism have been tone deaf and untrue at the very least. I don’t see anything to like.
eclare
Jeezus. What a great summary. I hate it, but it is what it is.
Betty Cracker
One thing I’ve always wondered about: why did GWB nominate Roberts to become chief justice instead of elevating one of the Republican justices already on the court as chief and nominating Roberts as an associate? (IIRC, Rehnquist croaked after GWB had nominated Roberts to replace O’Connor, so he swapped the original nomination with Alito.) Maybe it’s not unprecedented, but that always seemed odd to me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the coverage of the courts by the Bigfoot media is lazy and superficial, but if you care about issues– votings rights, reproductive rights– it’s not like you have to spend hours in distant libraries reading musty old volumes to figure out who’s on which side. I’m not usually one to jump on the “Dems suck at messaging!” bandwagon– which assumes there’s some platonic ideal of Message that can make the apathetic and disengaged care and get engaged– but the left doesn’t put enough focus the non-presidential parts of government, courts and state legislatures especially.
Baud
This is kind of dumb though, since most of those people are elected partisans, and Fauci has been demonized by Republicans for obvious reasons.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Most Chief Justices weren’t previously on the Supreme Court. (Rhenquist was.) It’s all political, and I assume Roberts had the right connections at the right time (at least among people who GWB believed were confirmable as chief).
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yeah the uber lefties are out there spreading doom and criticizing the administration for sins real and imagined. The distance between the DSA left and the MAGA right is miniscule. Both are willing to throw immigrants under the bus and hate on Dems at the first opportunity.
One group does it under the guise of economics, the other does it under the guise of nationalism. Distinction without a difference for those at the receiving end.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: @Baud: left to his own devices, Bush thought Harriett Meyers was Supreme Court material, so I’m guessing Leonard Leo or someone like him promoted Roberts, precisely because of his history with voting rights. As I recall, Roberts is one of the key latter-day villains in Ari Berman’s Give Us The Ballot, which I strongly recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it.
The Moar You Know
Those survey results are horrifying, and just point up how little attention Dem voters pay to anything. John Roberts is a bought and paid for whore placed in office to advance Republican interests at the expense of the nation’s welfare. Period.
EXHIBIT A: Citizens United, which was the beginning of the end.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
In the Covid thread, Kay was talking about how most people who haven’t been vaccinated aren’t rabid anti-vaxxers but people who never do any preventive health maintenance and only go to the doctor when facing an acute health emergency.
I think the political internet on our side is kind of like that. It pays a great deal of attention to things like courts and legislatures after they have gone bad, but is less interested thinking about preventive measures. (As a general matter, of course.)
Mart
@Matt: Liz Cheney is all in on voter suppression and the “right” people counting and certifying the votes of the “wrong” people. Truly a moderate Republican ’cause she dislikes coups?
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
He wanted his nominee to be Chief Justice to serve as long as possible.
different-church-lady
As of this morning BJ was back to a “continuous reloads” state of affairs on my old iPad. (Firefox this time, although it doesn’t seem to matter which browser an iPad uses, it’s like they’re all just graphic front ends calling the same goofy core code.)
In the meantime I have friends who have newly qualified for the “did everything right and still got COVID” club.
And about 18 other sucky things I won’t go into here. So, Happy Holidays.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
and then demand! that the President fix it! or else be declared a failure to justify their decision to stay home on election day
maybe I’ll join Old Fart Twitter and just tweet that old Schoolhouse Rock video at the youths and those who wish they were (Sarandon Twitter) as a first step in deprogramming the cult of the presidency.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The Voting Rights decision is one of the worst examples of extraconstitutional judicial activism in the court’s history. That said, Roberts wasn’t completely wrong in the idea that the VRA should be updated. Kay or Betty said that the new voting rights provisions in the current bill are an improvement. Hopefully, the Dems can get it passed in the new year.
mrmoshpotato
@Freemark:
Agreed! The stupid, selfish brats…
burnspbesq
@Baud:
There are any number of cynical ways to look at that. Most of them start with the assumption that Roberts knows how to count to five.
Tenar Arha
IMHO & my dreams John Roberts should stew in his own juices for the rest of his life as he has to deal with those 5 other fascistic justices his own gd decisions are responsible for, and then watch as Democrats increase the size of the Supreme Court to counter their radicalism and protect their accomplishments.
VOR
@Mike in NC: Same place as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”. Plenty of groups out there with disingenuous names.
Brant
@Matt: Dead on the money, there.
Old School
@Baud:
Can’t find a chart of over time, but in 2015, Roberts’ rating by Democrats was:
Favorable 37%
Unfavorable 15%
No Opinion 47%
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Have at it:
Schoolhouse Rock – I’m Just a Bill – YouTube
Baud
@Old School: Thanks! Still too high!
Despite all the talk of polarization, our side isn’t nearly polarized enough.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: after Shelby, there was a brief flurry of stories about Republicans being ready to write and vote on, and by implication for, a renewed VRA. James Sensenbrenner, not usually someone I count as one of the good guys, was one of them. The effort seems to have been quashed pretty quickly, as I recall. We can all guess by which dark forces.
Mai Naem mobile
Like everybody has already said, Roberts is the best of the worst. Also he voted with the liberals in the ACA decision. Some of it is looks. Roberts looks like a non threatening white bread looking patrician. There’s a bunch of Republican politicians who look like that. Chuck Grassley looks like Grandpa but votes like a Nazi. John Thune and Roger Marshall are John Roberts’ clones.
Baud
@burnspbesq: Maybe. But the public can only see the line-up, not what’s in their hearts and minds.
Captain C
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Republicans have no responsibility for or to do anything. If Republicans don’t do the right thing, it’s the fault of the Democrats. If bad things happen directly from Republican actions which Dems tried their hardest to stop, it’s the Dems’ fault for not trying hard enough. Send me more money, this gated community isn’t cheap.”
–also Glem
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile: I agree on all points.
David Fud
What’s the percentage of white Democrats again?
Oh, look, it was 59% in 2019. What a weird coincidence.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I do think the update in one of the bills is an improvement because it requires oversight to changes made in any state instead of just the former Confederacy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dearmaizie: yes, we must never lose sight of the fact that Democrats are the Real Enemy. Thank you for your vigilance.
Reboot
I wouldn’t put a 55% rating in even a ‘liked, but not well liked’ category, much less regard the poll’s subject as ‘popular’ based on 55% of response. Also, how accurate is Gallup? I thought they had a land line versus cell phone problem.
Captain C
@Baud:
cf. 2016: “How dare you guilt me into voting for History’s Worst Monster by pointing out that otherwise Trump will get to appoint Supreme Court justices?!?”
ETA:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And you MUST FIX IT HOW I WANT!!!! No, I won’t tell you how or what I want, I’ll just tell you that you did it wrong after the fact (and before you did it, too).
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, the most forgiving (and likely revisionistic) thing you could say about Roberts and that decision is that he expected Congress would act quickly to fix it. I think before that decision, the VRA had received broad bipartisan support the many times it had been reauthorized in the past.
trollhattan
Suppose if there’s an Overton Window on SCOTUS the Trump trio has shoved it all the way to Maryland. Roberts versus Coathanger seems like a pretty big contrast, but TBF so does Roberts vs. Alito.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl:
Haha.
Old School
@Baud: Actually, there’s a net favorability rating graph at the same link. (I should have kept scrolling down.)
In 2006, Roberts was -1 with Democrats and up to +22 in 2015.
In 2006, Roberts was +69 with Republicans and down to -20 in 2015.
Seems to be based on Roberts not fully gutting the ACA twice.
Ivan X
1) once in a while, he has strategically been the swing vote for issues that matter to Democrats, which gives him cover for everything else.
2) his Repub appointed colleagues are all openly radical ideologue lunatics. Roberts hides this much better than they do. He appears to be the “fair and reasonable” one simply by contrast, and his demeanor helps that perception.
Baud
@Captain C:
November 2016 and Inauguration Day 2021 are the two main waypoints in my journey to not caring anymore.
Baud
@Old School: Thanks. In fairness, that was a big decision, even with the gutting of Medicaid expansion in red states.
WaterGirl
@Baud: There are lots of potential ways to take that. I would be very interested in what you were intending to say.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I’m saying I don’t care anymore. It’s Chapter 1 in the normie handbook.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yep. The gutting of the VRA basically unleashed a wave of Trumpism before Trump, including in states outside the South that were never subject to the DOJ preclearance requirement under the VRA.
Anyway
@Baud:
Regular commenters on a top 10,000 blog forfeit any claims to “normie”
Baud
@Anyway: Please don’t tell my support group that I still comment here.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: Not odd at all. He was at that time poised to become the youngest Justice on the Court. By making him Chief, Shrub ensured that a conservative Chief would control the Court administratively for 40 years or more.
trollhattan
@Baud:
I just assumed this was the “Baud 2024[and beyond!]” communications director.
Warblewarble
Roberts use of a fileting knife serves republican agendas more effectively than a wrecking ball and is harder to mobilise opposition to.
Mai Naem mobile
@Reboot: IIRC Gallup tends to skew right but beyond landline/mobile I wonder how they deal with the increase in number of “independents.” I don’t want to get into the weeds about independents – I just wonder how they deal with the numbers.
Baud
@trollhattan:
I’ve rebooted my campaign philosophy.
Baud! 20XX!: You don’t give a shit and neither do I!
sab
Wasn’t Roberts one of the Brooks Brothers rioters? That alone should have been a huge blot on his resume as a judge wannabee. Instead it shot him to the top of the Federalist Society’s candidate list.
Citizen Alan
@Mart: I honestly wonder if her sole objection to the coup was that it was on behalf of Shitgibbon rather than her faction of the GQP. It was during the Bush-Cheney admin, after all, that they first started talking about “the permanent Republican majority.” I’m sure Liz has no objection to the idea of voter suppression ensuring that the no Dem ever becomes President again.
mrmoshpotato
Re: The January 6th insurrection/attempt to overthrow the US government by Dump-humping, fascist shitstains
Warblewarble
Ballocks and strikes.
Baud
@sab: Not sure, but I don’t think so. I think Roberts was on the litigation team. I believe Kavanaugh might have been one of the rioters.
Old School
@sab:
He was an advisor to Jeb Bush during that time, but he’s not listed on Wikipedia as a Brooks Brothers participant.
sab
As I remember, back in the day someone talked Sen Obama out of voting for Roberts, with the reasoning that this wasn’t about legal theory and some idealistic theory about democracy but about real world political results and Roberts would be awful. So Obama voted against ‘elections have consequences and Bush won the latest round’, and voted for ‘who is on the Supreme Court matters and this guy would be a disaster.’
Who was that guy who persuaded Obama? I think it was Ron Klein, but I can’t pin that down.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Heh :-)
[Goes to scrape off yet another bumper sticker]
Mai Naem mobile
@Baud: it could also be because we don’t have the manpower that the right has with AEI, Grover Norquist’s outfit, Manhattan Institute, Hudson Institute, Hoover Institution, IWF, The Federalist Society, The Claremont Institute, ALEC, Chamber of Commerce, Heartland, Heritage,CATO, NAIB and a million other organizations. With an assist from FOX, RW radio and WSJ. The left has CAP, EPI, CBPP and Brookings. MSNBC is no FOX and left wing radio is almost non existent.
WaterGirl
@Baud: But you don’t not care, right?
sab
@Old School: Thanks. Good to know.
sab
@Baud: You agree with Oldschool. I am sure about Kavanaugh.
Baud
@Mai Naem mobile: I’m not sure how different total resources are these days. The right seems more organized and focused with their resources however, and has for a long time.
@WaterGirl: I’ll put it this way: I’m resigned to whatever will be, and I do not pretend to know what will be.
Brachiator
How is this weighted? I would think that more people would know who Biden or Fauci are than know anyone on the Supreme Court.
And it would be easier to have some opinion about Biden or Fauci. How could you have any kind of knowledgeable opinion about Roberts if you did not have more than a passing knowledge of Supreme Court opinions?
And here it might come down to a person’s own ideological biases.
I don’t know. Some polling is just junk. You have numbers and percentages that really don’t represent anything comparable or particularly meaningful.
Old School
@Brachiator:
Looking at the details, 239 Democrats were polled. 131 approved of Roberts, 86 disapproved, and 22 were don’t know/refused.
sdhays
@Ivan X: He’s the Susan Collins of the Supreme Court.
Juju
I agree with you, Betty. Elie Mystal gave a righteous rant about that last night on All In with Chris Hayes. Mystal probably has it on his Twitter feed. I’m too lazy to check and don’t know how to link twitters anyway. When I’ve been polled by Gallop, and I’m in one of their polling groups, I always rank Roberts somewhere between Mitch McConnell and the floor.
Suzanne
@Matt:
A lot of people want to be Different, because they think that makes them Smarter.
I have never met a leftist or a liberal who didn’t think Roberts sucked. So I am questioning the premise. I could be wrong, perhaps they exist.
Anyway
@Mai Naem mobile:
Brookings is not left. They’re a “both sides” outfit.
Captain C
@Suzanne: Many people seem to mistake reflexive contrarianism for savvy intelligence and thoughtful skepticism. This probably make them easier to manipulate, as they are more anxious to seem like they’re smarter than everyone (especially the authorities) than they are willing to do due diligence.
Suzanne
@Captain C: Agreed. And especially when the choice is binary (do I vote for Democrats or Republicans?), there’s an impulse to make it more complicated than that. It isn’t.
Bill Arnold
My attitude about Mr. Roberts is that he’s the most reachable of the SCOTUS’s Republican Wing; that he is the most concerned about their blatant partisan exuberance negatively affecting the the court’s reputation, and about potential consequent reductions in its influence.
He reads and socializes; these are potential avenues for influence.
Juju
@Baud: Rosenstien and Kavanaugh, actually
Edmund Dantes
@Citizen Alan: it also saved two separate confirmation hearings.
frosty
@Anyway: Fortunately, Baud is in the clear because this is an ALMOST Top 10,000 blog.
billcinsd
@Roger Moore: The last time a Democrat nominated a Chief Justice was 1948, when Truman nominated Fred Vinson his Secretary of the Treasury. HST nominated 4 justices, including a Republican Senator
billcinsd
@Betty Cracker: The original VRA was not limited to Confederate states, no matter what they taught you in FLA grade school. All of Alaska and Arizona, and parts of Michigan, South Dakota, California, and New York were all subject to pre-clearance
kindness
When I saw the poll saying Democrats liked Roberts, it was clear the poll was nuts. When I saw it was Gallup that did the polling, it all made sense.
TriassicSands
Betty, I don’t disagree with what you wrote, but I really believe that what is behind this and virtually everything else that is wrong politically in this country is the great threesone: stupidity, ignorance, and disengagement.