In their 1968 hit song “Revolution,” the Beatles’ John Lennon sang, “You say you got a real solution. Well, you know, we’d all love to see the plan.” This year, the Democratic Socialists of America published a plan. Much of its plan reads like it was lifted from Lennon’s most famous solo hit, “Imagine,” which is little more than melodic Marxism.
However, as the midterm elections approach, one aspect of the DSA’s agenda deserves closer scrutiny by the media and the voting public. After abolishing the Senate and the Electoral College, the DSA would “replace the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to one supreme people’s congress.”
It would be tempting to dismiss this full-frontal assault on our constitutional order as hyperbolic ranting from the most radical elements of the political Left. But we would do so at our own risk. Prominent, “mainstream” figures have made similar threats.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has claimed the Supreme Court to be illegitimate because it has rendered decisions against “widely held public opinion.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who leads some Democratic presidential polls, has questioned the need for the Supreme Court: “How much does the current structure benefit us? … I don’t think it does.” And longtime political consultant and strategist James Carville, with his trademark subtlety of a blowtorch, has said, “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on Day 1, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. … Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
If either party begins packing the Supreme Court to further its political agenda, it would be taking the first step down a path from which there is no return. No one would expect the opposing party not to retaliate when given the chance. Transforming the Supreme Court into a partisan super-legislature would be a self-inflicted, potentially fatal, wound to our most cherished freedoms.
The Constitution’s framers intentionally provided the federal judiciary with life tenure and guaranteed salary to quarantine the judicial branch of government from the politics of the other two elected branches. Contrary to Warren’s invective, widely held public opinion has no bearing on the decisions of the Supreme Court, nor should it. When the will of the majority, expressed through a democratically elected legislature, infringes upon the rights of the minority or conflicts with the protections of the Constitution, it is the proper function of federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, to say “no.”
Judges are not infallible. The Supreme Court has made mistakes, the worst of which are known by names including Dred Scott, Plessy, and Korematsu, but continued legal advocacy provided the court with the opportunity to correct its mistakes.
Furthermore, the Constitution contains the means by which the people may have the final say through the amendment process. This is a high bar, but it has provided a level of stability in our republic not seen elsewhere in history. History shows us that revolutions that target independent courts and the rule of law in the name of empowering the will of the people inevitably devolve into chaos and, eventually, authoritarian tyranny that crushes the very will and spirit of the people.
While America has been the exception to the general rule of history thus far, indulging any political party or agenda that includes the destruction of separate, coequal branches of government would be the beginning of another revolution destined for failure. The protection of fundamental rights and our God-given liberty have endured in America. Despite sometimes turbulent shifts in political winds, we have yet to stray so far off course in any direction that a course correction could not be achieved through republican principles and our constitutional framework.
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In his 1980 hit “Beautiful Boy,” Lennon told his son and the rest of us, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” While many politicians are talking about tariffs, inflation, gas prices, and foreign wars, some are busy making other plans. Those plans include drastic changes to our courts. Those changes would fundamentally alter our Constitution’s separation of powers.
Voters deserve to know where every candidate for federal office stands on the necessity of preserving our republican ideals and governing structure. Americans would be wise to answer those calling for such radical changes with more lines from the Beatles’ “Revolution”: “You say you’ll change the constitution. Well, you know, we all want to change your head.”
Lathan Watts is the vice president of public affairs for Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) and its sister organization ADF Action. He earned his juris doctor degree from the University of Mississippi.