The American judiciary is in serious trouble

Supreme Court justices are meant to be impartial. Instead they've become political agents.

If Republicans confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court sometime in the coming weeks, despite the troubling sexual misconduct allegations that have surfaced, they will send the United States tumbling further into a wide-ranging and potentially destructive judicial crisis. The GOP's ruthless determination to use procedural gimmicks to entrench their power on state and national courts for a generation will invite (and fully justify) further escalation from Democrats and send the country careening toward an ugly standoff over the legitimacy of the courts themselves.

The GOP's abuse of its power of judicial appointments is so widespread at this point as to feel commonplace, and it goes far beyond the behavior of Vichy Republicans in Congress. Party elites at all levels are acting like bank robbers feverishly stuffing stacks into sacks even as they hear the sirens approaching in the distance.

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David Faris

David Faris is an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. He is a frequent contributor to Informed Comment, and his work has appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Indy Week.