Supreme Court in disarray as approval plummets and divisions deepen: NYT analysis

The Supreme Court is so determined to kowtow to President Donald Trump, and so willing to openly politicize the bench, that it is losing tremendous credibility.

"In the past few weeks, two Supreme Court justices offered comments that were greeted with outrage and condemnation," wrote Jesse Wegman, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, for The New York Times on Sunday. "The episodes were unrelated, but together they offer a revealing glimpse of the state of the Supreme Court, on the verge of momentous rulings in the weeks ahead. Only one justice issued a public apology — the wrong justice."

Wegman went on to describe how Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal Democrat, seemingly criticized conservative Republican Justice Brett Kavanaugh for using the Supreme Court’s so-called “shadow docket” to temporarily permit immigration officers to use race and apparent ethnicity as a basis for detaining suspected undocumented immigrants. Sotomayor commented that Kavanaugh’s decision reflected that he was raised in a professional household and did not understand the disadvantages of marginalized groups, and later apologized for making “inappropriate” remarks about her colleagues.

By contrast, Wegman observed that conservative Republican Justice Clarence Thomas incorrectly compared progressivism with totalitarian movements like fascism (as promulgated by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini) and communism (Joseph Stalin). He even gave a shout-out to Harlan Crow, his billionaire friend who he has been criticized for accepting lavish gifts from. From Wegman’s perspective, Thomas rather than Sotomayor should have apologized.

Going further, Wegman attributed the Supreme Court’s falling public approval ratings to the combination of "ideological arrogance and intellectual incoherence” reflected in Thomas’ speech and in blatantly partisan rulings in favor of Trump. He illustrated this point by comparing Sotomayor’s remarks with Thomas’ comments.

“One was of a court that would work for America: tough-minded, passionate and willing to admit error,” Wegman wrote. “The other was of the court we have: smug, unapologetic and gleefully divisive. Meanwhile, the millions of Americans who are no less devoted than Justice Thomas to the egalitarian principles of the Declaration must wonder where they might go for an apology.”

Wegman is not alone in noting the declining situation in the Supreme Court. Writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer last week, columnist Will Bunch observed that “almost every day, there are new signs — from shocking news leaks to surprisingly indecorous public jabs, and legal opinions that read like cries for help — that the U.S. Supreme Court is at war … with itself. Looming large over this soft civil war inside one of America’s three branches of government is our most fundamental liberty, the right to vote.”

Also in April, The Conversation reported that “according to Gallup, as of September 2025, 42% of respondents approve, 52% disapprove and 6% have no opinion of the Supreme Court. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 48% of Americans have a favorable view of the court, down from 70% five years earlier.”