People disagree about what to make of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s recent remark that in today’s climate of political polarization, “one side or the other is going to win.” It has been interpreted as an “anodyne“ description of that polarization, or as a “horrific” claim that compromise is impossible — and that Alito is one of the partisans.

Either reading is plausible, standing alone. In the context of his considered views as presented in his judicial opinions, the nastier view is the more persuasive.

At a dinner hosted by the Supreme Court Historical Society on June 3, a liberal documentary filmmaker, Lauren Windsor, asked Alito questions implying that she was far to the right, and secretly recorded the conversation.

“I don’t know that we can negotiate with the left in the way that needs to happen for the polarization to end,” she told him. “I think that it’s a matter of, like, winning.” He responded: “I think you’re probably right. On one side or the other — one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

Consider two of the issues that most obviously resist compromise: abortion and same-sex marriage. Alito........

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