I get why it happens, for both good and bad reasons, but I think it’s unhealthy that the predominant frame for nearly all coverage of SCOTUS decisions outside of specialist legal publications is some version of “Court rules to benefit / deals blow to [group X]”
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First, because the extent to which the upshot of a complex legal decision is, in fact, a benefit or harm to broad classes beyond the immediate plaintiffs is itself often legitimately contestable.
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Second, because it tacitly reinforces the idea that every legal decision is best understood exclusively through a sort of realpolitik/CLS lens where the actual legal arguments are merely rationalizations for achieving an essentially political outcome.
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And certainly some version of that view is held by many smart people, but it’s not exactly uncontroversial, and I think there are plenty of decisions & vote patterns where it’s just not the most plausible lens for clearly understanding what actually happened.
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Even if you believe that, there's still often nuance in the actual opinion that gets completely lost in large parts of the public debate. Look no further than DC v Heller being widely understood to bar any sort of gun regulation.
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