The Supermajority: The Year the Supreme Court Divided America

Summary

An incisive analysis of how the Supreme Court’s new conservative supermajority is overturning decades of law and leading the country in a dangerous political direction.

In The Supermajority, Michael Waldman explores the tumultuous 2021­–2022 Supreme Court term. He draws deeply on history to examine other times the Court veered from the popular will, provoking controversy and backlash. And he analyzes the most important new rulings and their implications for the law and for American society. Waldman asks: What can we do when the Supreme Court challenges the country?

Over three days in June 2022, the conservative supermajority overturned the constitutional right to abortion, possibly opening the door to reconsider other major privacy rights, as Justice Clarence Thomas urged. The Court sharply limited the authority of the EPA, reducing the prospects for combatting climate change. It radically loosened curbs on guns amid an epidemic of mass shootings. It fully embraced legal theories such as “originalism” that will affect thousands of cases throughout the country.

These major decisions—and the next wave to come—will have enormous ramifications for every American.

It was the most turbulent term in memory—with the leak of the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the first Black woman justice sworn in, and the justices turning on each other in public, Waldman previews the 2022–2023 term and how the brewing fights over the Supreme Court and its role that already have begun to reshape politics.

The Supermajority is a revelatory examination of the Supreme Court at a time when its dysfunction—and the demand for reform—are at the center of public debate.