LOGIC CARRIES THE DAY.

In "The Invertebrate Living Constitution," I conclude,

Under the notion of a "living constitution," mightn't there be a situation in which the Militant Normals are the leading edge of Changing Popular Opinion, and mightn't they be the ones more likely to be upset by a Supreme Court standing on Constitutional principles?  "All we wanted was to be left alone."  But that was too much restraint for Weimar America.  Constitutional protections might be their best hope right about now.

That concept might have been too simplistic for Our Intellectual Betters, according to Kevin Williamson.

It seems to be only now occurring to progressives how heavily they had leaned on the Supreme Court to act as their cat’s-paw — and how little work they have done to try not only to secure the maximum possible number of Democratic appointments to the Court but, more important, to defend and fortify the intellectual position that made those activist judges such reliable progressive policy-makers for all those decades. And it only now seems to really be becoming clear to them what they have lost by failing to defend that intellectual ground: not only the Roe regime but also much of the progressive activist thinking that made it and similar decisions possible, far-reaching regulatory power and a practically unlimited administrative state. If progressives are shocked by this — and they are shocked — it is because they made the mistake of thinking that convincing the editors of the New York Times was sufficient.

That's harsh, but not unfair.  It was also something anyone who wanted to look could see: why else did judicial confirmation hearings focus on Roe to the exclusion of everything else?  One can chant "Roe is the law" but without some sort of legislative codification, is that akin to invoking Thor to bring rain?

Manhattan Contrarian suggests that there are two "fundamentally irreconcilable Constitutional visions."  His piece, while polemical, ultimately identifies the flaw of the "living Constitution" approach.

Suppose that you are on the Supreme Court, and you subscribe to [the "living Constitution" Vision]; and thus you find yourself time after time on the losing end of these 6-3 decisions. What’s your strategy in writing your dissents? Actually, it’s easy. The goal is to divert attention away from the actual Constitution as far and as quickly as possible. Instead, you argue that the position of the current left is the only moral position, and anyone who might oppose it is a monster. Does this have anything to do with the Constitution? No, but so what? Don’t worry — you have the entirety of the media and academia to support you and to help keep the people from figuring out what you are doing.

Unfortunately, people can figure out what you are doing, and if it wasn't Donald Trump coming along with a list of potential justices not named Jeanine Pirro, that populist long march through legal studies would have continued.

I know I'm repeating myself: on current trends it will be the Democrats, particularly the noisiest self-styled progressives, who will be most desirous of Constitutional protections, and that cannot come soon enough.  What is now crazy, "A major transformation of the economy requires specific legislation duly enacted by Congress. Who could have though of such a crazy idea?," will be the establishment's talking point.