Inherent Asymmetry

Oregon Muse writes in the Ace of Spades blog,

Another day, another SCOTUS betrayal. I am in a bad mood. I am about ready to write off our 30-year experiment to install constitutionalist judges as pretty much a waste of time.
Yes, I know plenty of decent judges have been appointed to the lower courts, and I have been pleasantly surprised to read some hair-on-fire panic pieces in Slate and HuffPo about how Cocaine Mitch is confirming Trump's judicial appointments at an "alarming" rate. While I always enjoy progressives discomfited, I don't think they need to worry all that much. Because when they really, really want something, once they push it to the SCOTUS level, they're pretty much assured of getting it.

And when they get what they want, whatever it is (Obergefell v. Hodges, Roe v. Wade), then the decision is set in stone, and precedent forever. Yay stare decisis.

This is true even in obvious bad decisions. I've even heard some liberals complain about how poorly Roe v. Wade was decided, not that they're disappointed with the outcome, but they can see the bad arguments. With that plus the advances in neonatology, you'd think that Roe v. Wade would be ripe for a revisit. But no, nobody seems to want to challenge it and so I doubt I will see any substantive challenge to it in my lifetime.

And on the rare instances where the progressives lose (Masterpiece Cake v. Colorado), it is always decided on the narrowest grounds, leaving open endless possibilities for relitigatation, so much so that SCOTUS might just as well announce "THIS DECISION IS FOR THIS ONE INSTANCE ONLY AND CAN NEVER BE USED ANYWHERE ELSE FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER."

One aspect of the problem is that the terms 'progressive' and 'conservative' aren't quite symmetric terms. That is, the progressive agenda is fairly easy to define, i.e. anything that advances identity politics, more centalized government, and pisses on traditional moral values. But with conservatives, there's a lot of difference between the libertarians, the neocons, the socons, the CoC "country club" Republicans, so when we say we need more "conservative" judges, that word can havee different meanings.

Another aspect of this inherent asymmetry how the confirmation process plays out for both sides: Progressive candidates don't seem to have any problem telling the senate who they are and how they're going to vote, and usually the confirmation votes are pretty lopsided, like they used to be. On the other hand judges nominated by the GOP suddenly have to clam up and turn into stealth candidates to avoid being borked by the Democrats' allies in the hair-on-fire media. There's never any melodrama at the confirmation hearings for any Dem nomination, no matter how loony left they are, and so pretty much sail on through while GOP nomination hearings routinely get turned into shit shows.

And the DACA decision, which basically says it's OK for Obama to issue an EO but not OK for Trump to rescind it, is truly bizarre.

Again, I wonder whether it's all been worth it. Politics is downstream from culture, and we've been fighting this political battle for decades, and then suddenly a GOP nominated "originalist" decides to change the definition of a word to something not originally intended by the authors of the regulation in question.

Against these Alice-through-the-looking-glass inanities, there is no defense.