This @ezraklein podcast is so profoundly misguided, it's incredible:

https://vox.com/21523051/supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-ruth-bader-ginsburg-democracy-term-limits

In the first half he talks about how bad it is if US becomes less democratic. In the second half he talks about the importance of having a less originalist Supreme Court.

The alternative to originalism is that Justices are not bound by the written word of the law. They will be in essence, a small group of unelected elder lawmakers. Clearly a less democratic institution. But Ezra does not even bring this thought up once!

Again: If justices are not bound by the word of the law they have more power. More power to a small group of unelected elders means less power to democracy.

This is obvious. But he does not even bring up this point in a long podcast about (1) democracy and (2) the Supreme Court

How is this possible? Yes people are tribal, and Ezra is on the left. But still, isn't there a point where things are so obvious that you can see them even coming from a partisan angle? At least enough to bring them up, and maybe present some sort of counter-argument.

My purpose is not to ridicule Ezra in particular in this thread. The whole mainstream liberal discourse about the Supreme Court is incomprehensible to me. No one is capable of seeing the blaringly obvious.

And it's making me become a lot more skeptical of intellectuals and public discourse. If even the worlds leading intellectuals are incapable of seeing something this obvious, what can we trust them on?