Imagine that you are Justice Alito. You could read the returns as a clear rebuke to your opinion in Dobbs, which can’t make you feel too good. Should you moderate your opinions in the coming year in order to help the GOP in 2024, or stay the course and keep waving the reactionary flag?
My guess is you choose Option B, partly because that’s who you are, and partly because you see nothing but gridlock between Congress and Biden over the next two years. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Where a void exists, the judiciary will feel comfortable filling it.