Top Democratic presidential candidates appear universally opposed to the major Supreme Court decisions that have recently reshaped American politics but are split on whether or even how to reshape the high court itself.
But controversial Supreme Court decisions, such as loosening the reins on campaign finance, allowing for extreme partisan gerrymandering and gutting the core of the Voting Rights Act, have at least some Democrats talking about overhauling the judicial branch.
In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt — another Democrat unhappy with a conservative-majority high court — championed legislation to add an additional six justices to the bench. His plan, which was dubbed "court packing," got nowhere in the end.
At a campaign event Friday in Iowa, Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden said he opposed expanding the number of justices.
"No, I'm not prepared to go on and try to pack the court, because we'll live to rue that day," the former vice president told the Iowa Starting Line.
Other Democratic hopefuls have offered other plans to remake the Supreme Court, where the majority of five conservatives could remain a long-term obstacle to lasting changes in the name of democracy reform.
During the first Democratic debates, Bernie Sanders said he opposed FDR-style court packing and offered an alternative.
"We've got a terrible 5-4 majority conservative court right now," the Vermont senator said. "But I do believe constitutionally we have the power to rotate judges to other courts and that brings in new blood into the Supreme Court."
That idea isn't new — nor is it a radical liberal one.
Seven years ago, a University of Missouri law professor named Josh Hawley wrote a piece for National Affairs titled "The Most Dangerous Branch." He argued there was nothing inherently unconstitutional about rotating judges from the lower federal appeals courts through the Supreme Court. Now Hawley is in his first year as a Republican senator from Missouri, with a seat on the Judiciary Committee.
"Congress could stipulate that the Supreme Court be staffed with nine life-tenured judges drawn at random from the courts of appeals. These judges would serve on the Supreme Court for a term of several years, and then return to their original appointed posts on the lower appellate courts, to be replaced by another group of nine drawn by lot," he wrote in 2012. "Justices would thus acquire incentives for caution and moderation rather than judicial aggrandizement."
Among top-polling Democrats, only Sanders has mentioned rotating judges. Others in the presidential field have less defined strategies to mollify progressive voters upset by recent Supreme Court rulings – but few have ruled out court packing.
In March, both Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris toldPolitico they were open to the idea.
"It's a conversation that's worth having," Warren, a Massachusetts senator, said.
Harris, a senator from California whose polling has improved significantly since the first debate, said "everything is on the table." Harris also said she's "open" to another reform idea: applying term limits on justices, the pros and cons of which are debated in legal circles.
Biden, whose campaign website doesn't propose any changes in the judiciary, told a woman in Iowa last week that he opposes term limits for Supreme Court justices as well as court packing.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., appears to be the only candidate regularly polling as a top-five contender who explicitly supports growing the size of the Supreme Court. He has called for a court of 15 justices, with 10 "confirmed in the normal political fashion" and the others promoted from the lower courts "by unanimous agreement of the other 10."
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.