Ahead of Election Day 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court evenly divided, with four justices on the right and four justices on the left. Democrats tried to tell voters this was a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity to stop the high court’s drift to the right.
It didn’t work. Just enough Americans voted for Donald Trump anyway, and the Republican ended up naming three conservatives to the high court, giving the right a dominant 6-3 majority.
As the former president eyes a return to the White House, he’s apparently already thinking about future appointments. Here, for example, was the message Trump delivered on Friday, while speaking at a “Moms for Liberty” gathering:
“You know many presidents never get the opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice. I had three. They are not happy about that. And maybe we’ll get three or four more, can you imagine? Let’s have seven or eight or maybe even nine.”
It’s generally tough to make predictions about possible vacancies, but the fact remains that Justice Clarence Thomas has been on the Supreme Court for more than three decades, and the far-right jurist will turn 80 during the next presidential administration. Justice Samuel Alito, meanwhile, will turn 78 during the next administration.
Chief Justice John Roberts will turn 73 during the next administration — that’s roughly in line with historical averages for retirement — and Justice Sonia Sotomayor is six months older than Roberts.
Again, this isn’t a prediction. I have no idea whether any of these jurists have given retirement a moment’s thought. Several modern justices have served into their 80s, and it’s entirely possible that the court’s sitting justices will do the same. But when thinking about possible campaign issues, I suspect many voters, even on the left, shrugged in response to Democratic warnings in 2016. Much of the electorate had heard similar cautions before, but many dramatic developments — such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade, for example — hadn’t happened. A degree of complacency was largely unavoidable. Ahead of the 2024 cycle, however, conditions have changed. The Supreme Court has become increasingly radical and regressive, and earlier Democratic warnings have come to fruition. It’s against this backdrop that Trump wants to name several additional justices, rhetorically asking conservative voters, “Can you imagine?” I think the answer is yes, many of us can imagine it. What’s more, it seems like the sort of thing that might help motivate quite a few voters over the next year or so.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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