Coming This Fall: Disputed Elections—and a New Supreme Court Nominee?

Samuel Alito has a book coming out in early October. A little weird that he’s doing a book tour right after the court’s new session kicks off?

Samuel Alito, a suspected Dobbs and Hobby Lobby leaker, wine aficionado, and far-right flag waver, has a new book coming this fall. Ordinarily, a Supreme Court justice’s book is an opportunity to line their pockets with a hefty advance, enjoy the perks of a lecture tour, and sit for gentle interviews with handpicked partisans who gullibly swallow the usual line about how they’re students of the Constitution, not robed, opportunistic hacks.

Yet The Nation’s Elie Mystal noticed something unusual about the publication date of Alito’s forthcoming doorstopper, So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and the Country. It’s scheduled to hit bookstores on October 6, the second day of the court’s 2026–27 term. Alito, whose appreciation for private jet travel is well established, would ordinarily be due at his day job.

Unless, Mystal suggests, Alito plans to retire. Certainly, Alito must be enjoying life as a leader of the conservative supermajority. You know, making it more difficult to vote, overturning reproductive rights, and gutting the regulatory state, all while being feted each summer at a religious summit in Rome or hosted by a princess at a European castle.

Yet Alito, 75, is also enough of a savvy political analyst to understand that this could be his last chance to preserve his seat for conservatives for decades to come. For the time being, Republicans remain favored to hold the U.S. Senate this fall. But what if Democrats ride a blue wave and take control, summon their inner Mitch McConnell to blockade any late-term Trump selection, and take back the White House in 2028?

In that case, Alito might then need to white-knuckle it through six years of annual physicals to ensure the GOP retains........

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