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This past week, Justice Elena Kagan gave a speech at Catholic University law school in D.C., warning the American public and her colleagues about the ways that the Supreme Court itself is undermining democratic governance. The speech was noteworthy in its unvarnished language about an American public that has lost confidence in her court, for good reason. On this week’s Amicus bonus episode, Dahlia Lithwick discussed the nature of Kagan’s concerns with Madiba K. Dennie, the deputy editor and senior contributor at the legal commentary outlet, Balls and Strikes, and author of The Originalism Trap. Their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Dahlia Lithwick: Justice Kagan is almost the most careful of all the sitting justices not to say anything polemical, or partisan, or inflammatory. Yes, she can throw down in a dissent, but she’s very careful in her speeches. She doesn’t say things unless she very much intends to say them, and she absolutely went there on this topic of a politicized Supreme Court. It’s worth noting and she did so just a couple of weeks before the midterms. That certainly suggests that she is thinking of this time as a kind of break-the-glass moment for voting rights, for democracy, and maybe more profoundly, for an American public that is losing confidence in the high court. She said the American people “look around this political system and think that all this money chasing all these political candidates is a nightmare … and they’re right.” She’s not just saying the court is putting a thumb on the scale to warp voting rights—that’s the gravamen of the........

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