The month of June saw American public life spin from a highly touted nuclear accord with North Korea to wrenching stories of children torn from their families at the southern border.



But the developments that could have the longest-term impact on US society were not wrought by Donald Trump or targeted by popular protests. They were issued by the supreme court, whose far-reaching power over American lives was demonstrated in a series of bombshell conservative rulings.

Amid the torrent of political news, White House scandals, special counsel surprises and presidential tweets, the power of the supreme court as one of the nation’s primary instruments of change can recede. But while executive orders and acts of Congress can be interrupted or reversed by the partisan pendulum, supreme court rulings are meant to bridge generations.

That durable fact has inspired acute concern among progressives over the recent rulings. The justices upheld Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries; complicated abortion access in California; dealt what could be a death blow to public-sector unions by ending mandatory dues; approved a Republican-led voter purge in Ohio that disproportionately targets racial minorities; upheld a Texas voting map likely to disenfranchise minority voters; made it more difficult for low-income victims of wage theft to redress their grievances; and more.

The rulings felt to many progressive like an unexpected attack – in such a short space of time – on the rights of women, minorities, unions and the poor.

The rulings were capped on Wednesday with the retirement announcement of the centrist justice Anthony Kennedy, opening the way for Trump to create an unassailable conservative majority.

Whoever Donald Trump puts on the court will be determining rights and liberties for the next three or four decades Dan Goldberg, Alliance for Justice

While Kennedy joined with the conservative bloc in the recent rulings, over his 30-year career he has provided a crucial fifth vote shoring up the court’s liberal-leaning bloc on issues from abortion to LGBT rights. His replacement by a more rigid conservative could endanger those rulings.

As Trump began his public musings about whom he might pick and Senate Republicans promised a speedy confirmation, advocates raised alarm about the politicization of the court, the increasing divergence of its ideological makeup from the country and its immense power. They warned that Trump’s legacy may not be any single piece of legislation, but the mark he leaves on the judiciary.

“We’re talking about a lifetime seat,” said Dan Goldberg, legal director of Alliance for Justice, a progressive national advocacy organization.

“That means that long after Donald Trump departs from the scene, whoever Donald Trump puts on the court will be determining the rights and liberties of the American people for the next three or four decades. So it’s no exaggeration to say that critical legal rights and protections are truly hanging in the balance.”

‘A very, very modest preview’

Josh Blackman, 33, a professor at the South Texas College of Law specializing in the supreme court and constitutional law, hailed the term just concluded from the other side of the ideological spectrum.

Donald Trump and Anthony Kennedy at the White House in April 2017. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

“This was probably the best term that conservatives had in the supreme court maybe in my lifetime,” he said.



The term might provide only “a very, very modest preview” of waves of conservative rulings to come, however, because a locked-down conservative majority would likely inspire rightwing activists to bring increasingly aggressive cases, said Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

“It’s not just that justice Kennedy’s successor is likely going to move the court to the right,” Vladeck said. “It’s that knowing that there are five conservative justices surely emboldens states and conservative interest groups to bring to the supreme court legal theories that they might have been reluctant to leave in justice Kennedy’s hands.”

If that picture of the country’s jurisprudential future has left liberals distraught, it has also raised questions about the court’s increasingly politicized nature, its power to shape society and the erosion of its independence as one branch of government meant to balance the other two – Congress and the presidency – and to be checked in turn itself.

While past courts have had liberal or conservative bents, since the Bush v Gore decision that decided the 2000 election, the court has taken on a more explicitly political feel.

“People say the founders would roll over in their graves – I think the founders would hang themselves,” said Mickey Edwards, vice-president of the Aspen Institute thinktank and formerly a congressman for 16 years. “The whole idea of the court being a separate and independent branch has totally disappeared. It is now a third branch of the policymaking process.”

Extreme partisanship in Congress has led the legislature to relinquish its power to the presidency and the court, Edwards said.

People say the founders would roll over in their graves – I think the founders would hang themselves Mickey Edwards, Aspen Institute

“We now have become so accustomed to thinking of things – whether it’s foreign policy or trade policy or other things that the Congress has constitutional authority over – we now look at them all as presidential powers,” Edwards said. “So the presidency has grown much stronger.

“I would also say that the supreme court has grown stronger and it’s become more partisan, which is very disturbing.”

Not only has the court become more powerful, analysts say, but it also appears to have become increasingly insulated from the concerns of Main Street. While Trump’s shortlist of potential nominees to replace Kennedy is long on academic pedigrees, advocates question whether the next justice will have practical sympathies commensurate with the power he or she will have over average American lives.

On certain issues, the court’s prospective conservative majority diverges sharply with public opinion. Public support for abortion rights “remains as high as it has been in two decades of polling”, according to Pew Research, with 57% “saying abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40% say it should be illegal in all or most cases”.

“It’s clear that Donald Trump seeks to put forward a narrow-minded elitist who will protect corporations, the wealthy and the powerful, and individuals who will dismantle Roe, take away critical rights of LGBT Americans and eliminate healthcare for millions of people,” said Goldberg, referring to Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision protecting abortion rights.

“All of these rights have been hard-won over decades, and it’s no exaggeration to say the right wants to put on the bench an individual that will turn the clock back.”



New Jersey senator Cory Booker addresses a Democratic rally on the steps of the court last week. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

In rulings on issues such as workplace arbitration, sexual harassment, voting rights, consumer rights and civil rights, the court could have a particuilar impact on society’s most vulnerable.



“I think the reality is that the court’s influence on everyday lives is felt most directly by those who tend to depend upon government, those who may not be in a socio-economic position to adequately vindicate their own rights without some government assistance,” said Vladeck.

‘Elections have consequences’

The opportunity for Republicans, who account for only 27% of voters, to lock in a conservative supreme court for a generation represents a tremendous payoff in a series of gambles for a party that has appeared in danger of breaking apart. In one of his most audacious power plays, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, refused to consider Merrick Garland, Obama’s final supreme court pick, for eight months in 2016, arguing that the choice had to wait for the election.

The move could have backfired, had Hillary Clinton won. But although 3 million more Americans voted for Clinton than voted for Trump, the reality show star triumphed in the electoral college, ascended to the presidency and now is prepared to name a second supreme court justice, following his successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch in 2017.

“Elections have consequences,” said Blackman. “A lot of people voted for Trump because of the supreme court, and now in two years he gets two picks.

“If Hillary Clinton had been elected, we’d have Merrick Garland and maybe someone to his left on the court right now. That’s how politics works, that’s how elections work.”