"American democracy simply cannot function without two equally healthy and equally strong political parties. So today, in my view, there is no Republican party..."

"... to counter the Democratic party in the country. And for that reason, American democracy is in grave peril.... A political party is a collection and assemblage of individuals who share a set of beliefs and principles and policy views about the United States of America. Today, there is no such shared set of beliefs and values and principles or even policy views as within the Republican party for America."

Said Judge Michael Luttig, quoted in "'No Republican party’ in US today, says anti-Trump conservative judge J Michael Luttig, who advised Mike Pence not to try to overturn 2020 election, says former president has destroyed GOP" (The Guardian).

Trump, he said, was a danger “more so today” than last year, when Luttig testified to the House January 6 committee.

I can't help reading between the lines and seeing Luttig's outrage that Trump broke the system in which the elite were thinking up the beliefs and values and principles and policy views and ordinary people were stuck with what was handed to them.

"Hi Ann - long-time local reader. After Breyer mused on 'super stare decisis' today I duck-duck-go'd it and your 2005 post was one of the first results...."

"I was struck by how it felt like this post could have been written today. Plus ça change." 

That's from my email. The 2005 post is "Luttig and 'super-stare decisis.'" I'll just print the whole thing (below) so you can read it and see how up-to-date it is.

First, here's what Justice Breyer said:

It is certainly true that we cannot base our decisions on whether they're popular or not with the people. Casey seemed to say we shouldn't base our decisions not only on that but whether they're going to -- whether they're going to seem popular, and it seemed to me to have a paradoxical conclusion that the more unpopular the decisions are, the firmer the Court should be in not departing from prior precedent, sort of a super stare decisis, but it's super stare decisis for what are regarded as -- by many, as the most erroneous decisions. Do you think there is that category? Is there -- or is it just normal stare decisis? 

And here's what I wrote 16 years ago (when GWB needed to fill a Supreme Court seat):