POLITICS: Left’s attack on Supreme Court is an assault on our democracy

Actual walls went up around the Supreme Court building early Thursday, replacing the “bike rack” barriers that went up earlier after the draft Roe-repeal opinion got leaked and protesters crowded in. Far worse, a lefty activist group has posted a map claiming to show the homes of the six right-leaning Supreme Court justices, inviting the world to join in “a walk-by” next week.

Bad enough that judges and their families face screaming lunatics besieging their houses; posting that info invites actual violence. Guess “doxxing” is all right when progressives do it.

Remember, just a few years back a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter opened fire on Republican House baseball practice, severely wounding Rep. Steve Scalise.

This assault on the Supremes represents a huge ratcheting up of the attack on America’s institutions. (And not just Republicans: Mobs have periodically besieged Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s home in Brooklyn for years now.)

And no less than The New York Times is actively encouraging it. Its front page Thursday blared, “LEAK INTENSIFIES VIEW THAT COURT IS TOO POLITICAL,” with one story below headlined “A Concern That the Law Isn’t Justices’ Primary Guide.”

That article used selected interviews and cherry-picked polls to claim that Americans broadly see the leaked opinion as proof of political bias — though a huge number of constitutional scholars, including pro-choice ones like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have for decades condemned Justice Harry Blackmun’s reasoning in the Roe ruling. The only sign of “politics” here is the left’s own politics.

Liberals aren’t just disagreeing with the decision; they are calling for the entire court to be burned down — just the sort of violation of “norms” of which they frequently accuse the right.

And all the Democrats, from President Joe Biden on down, who’ve condemned the (draft) opinion but not the leak of it — and failed to defend the court as an institution or even call for calm — are joining in the attack on the Supreme Court itself.

This is of a piece with Dems’ attacks on other institutions, such as the Senate filibuster and even the Electoral College, that (for now) lead to results they dislike. No matter that these institutions have served to stabilize and protect our nation for centuries, or even that the filibuster served Democrats well before they took the Senate in 2020, and surely will again whenever Republicans take it back.

This, from a party that talks nonstop about an “assault on democracy” when it comes to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Sorry: Rhetoric that risks provoking physical attacks on the justices is another such assault.

However disappointed or even furious you are at a particular outcome, you have to protect the institutions — or bedlam follows. It’s appalling that so many of our nation’s leaders have clearly forgotten that.