The coming Republican power grab on the Supreme Court

It would be hard to imagine anything more damaging to the civic health of the nation

Trump reaching for the Supreme Court.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock)

With a deadly pandemic rampaging across the country and the president threatening to deploy armed federal agents to quash protests in numerous cities over the objection of local elected officials, it's understandable that there's been relatively little attention paid to the possibility that Republicans may soon attempt an unprecedented and dangerously antidemocratic power grab on the Supreme Court.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the high court's four liberals, was recently hospitalized with what was described as a possible infection. Three days later, the 87-year-old justice announced that she has been diagnosed with a recurrence of cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy. (Ginsburg was treated for colon cancer in 1999, pancreatic cancer in 2009, and lung cancer in 2018. Her current diagnosis concerns a recurrence of pancreatic cancer in her liver.)

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.