The whole point of the courts - of lifetime appointments - is that they are insulated from politics. The GOP, however, realized lifetime appointments could be a loophole in democracy, a way to permanently install partisans who couldn’t be voted out. That broke the courts!

The GOP packed the courts by illegitimately blocking out Democratic appointments, holding seats open, and then installing Republican operatives in those seats, whose primary loyalty is to the party and its political fortunes, not the country or Constitution.

The end result is to create a government with a body, unelected and unremovable - an oligarchic upper upper House - that can bind the other two branches and force them to promote the Republican agenda, as well help Republicans hold elected office by changing electoral rules.

Faced with this takeover of critical constitutional machinery for partisan aims, the only reasonable response is for the other branches to dilute the power of the Republican partisans in the courts and appoint real judges who will serve their constitutionally prescribed role.