Partisan sorting, fatalism, and Supreme Court legitimacy

This paper studies the contemporary contours of Supreme Court legitimacy. First, we construct a dataset of surveys from 2012-2024 to show that diffuse support now diverges among partisans; we then analyze an original, six-wave panel survey that documents the stability of this partisan sorting. Second, we unpack the direct and indirect effects of partisanship on legitimacy: Democrats are more cynical about the Court, disapprove of its outputs, and view obedience to the law differently than Republicans, which contributes to the profound partisan gap in legitimacy. Finally, we reevaluate the relationship between specific and diffuse support by introducing a new measure of specific support, which shows that “fatalistic” views of the Supreme Court contribute to low levels of legitimacy. Today, Democrats’ pessimism toward the Court has eliminated decades of positivity and goodwill. This fatalistic sorting among large swaths of the public implies that the Court’s perceived authority now rests on weak and polarized foundations.