They know as well as I know that the demographic tide is moving against them and will soon wash away much of their power.

Therefore, their strategy is to slow that progress as much as possible, if not reverse it.

That is why there is so much energy to restrict immigration, both illegal and legal. That is why there is such a push for voter restrictions, suppression and disenfranchisement. That is why there was so little resistance to mass incarceration.

Conservatives want to arrest America’s development and send our country into regression. This is about the maintenance of their power long after they have lost the dominance of numbers.

The courts are an insurance policy in their strategy of impeding progress.

Conservatives want to reserve the right to use religion as a weapon, to control other people’s bodies and to judge some people as less worthy of full participation in the American experience because of whom they love, how they identify, where they are from or which God they worship.

They want to protect what they call “American culture,” which is more aptly described as white culture. No matter how advantage was gained, no matter how privilege was acquired, it is the province of the deniable, scrubbed clean of blood and tears. Present privilege, power and prestige must be preserved.

That is one reason that the court’s decisions on the Affordable Care Act were closely watched and in some ways controversial. At its core, Obamacare is about the interconnectedness of civil societies. It asked those with more to help support the health and well-being of those with less.