Today’s lead house editorial in the Wall Street Journal highlights an excellent speech, titled “The Legitimacy of the Supreme Court,” that prominent Supreme Court advocate Kannon Shanmugam gave at Duke law school on Monday. Shanmugam offered a vigorous, intelligent, and nuanced criticism of attacks on the Court’s legitimacy. I encourage you to read the entire speech. Here are some excerpts:

I believe that the criticisms of the Court’s legitimacy are unfounded. But more than that, I believe that attacks on the Court’s legitimacy are dangerous—undermining public confidence in the Court and imperiling the rule of law….
[A]ttacks on the Court’s legitimacy are not new…. But what is new, I would suggest, is that the attacks have been accompanied by unusually toxic rhetoric. Consider statements like these:
“The extreme far-right, MAGA majority on the United States Supreme Court is totally out of control.” “This activist, extremist MAGA court faces a legitimacy crisis.” “The problem is not that the Supreme Court is just conservative. The problem is that it is corrupt.” “We must restore justice and balance to the rogue, radical Supreme Court.” “The Supreme Court is a cesspool of corruption devastating our communities.”
These statements do not come from random people; all of them come from members of Congress.
[A]ttacks on the legitimacy of the courts are contributing to the threat of violence against judges in general. And the same can be said with regard to the Supreme Court in particular…. [W]hen even members of Congress are threatening that Justices will “pay the price” and “won’t know what hit them” [Chuck Schumer’s thuggish threats] if they issue decisions reaching certain outcomes, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the rhetoric around the Court’s legitimacy risks adding to the problem. [Understatement alert!]