In a Nutshell
According to Lexington in The Economist, the U.S. Supreme Court is undergoing a quiet but consequential transformation: its justices, across the ideological spectrum, are increasingly prioritising personal legal philosophies and public profiles over institutional cohesion. Drawing on Sarah Isgur’s new book Last Branch Standing, the column observes that the traditional split between “institutionalists” (Chief Justice Roberts, Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett, and on the liberal side Justice Kagan) and “lone wolves” who prioritise their own jurisprudence (Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Sotomayor and Jackson) has tilted decisively toward the latter camp.
The piece notes that while the Court is overturning fewer precedents than under previous chief justices, it is also deciding far fewer cases and producing record numbers of dissents and concurrences. The elimination of the filibuster for judicial confirmations, lucrative book deals that incentivise personal brand-building, and a striking homogeneity of academic and professional background among justices are all identified as drivers. The result, Lexington warns, is a court speaking with a single institutional voice less than at any point in its history, and a corresponding erosion of public trust.
Our Take
A supreme court’s social contract rests on its perceived neutrality and its capacity to speak authoritatively across political cycles. When individual justices, whether progressive or conservative, begin to prize personal ideological purity and public visibility over collegial deliberation, they convert a check on majoritarianism into just another arena of partisan combat. The consequences extend well beyond Washington: a politicised court enlarges the very “attack surface” that democracies cannot afford to expose.
The dynamic Lexington describes is also not uniquely American. European constitutional courts, regulatory authorities, and even university governance bodies face comparable pressures.
Protecting checks and balances requires more than formal independence. Trust, once eroded, is exceedingly difficult to restore and democracies that lose faith in their courts lose one of their most important tools for preempting conflict.
