“We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power,” former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said of the Supreme Court on the High Stakes podcast last week. “You know, it used to be that you’d have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits, we should have 13 justices.”

Clinton is not alone in that sentiment. Senator Elizabeth Warren openly supported the idea back in 2022. Now, even Democrats once seen as more “moderate” are embracing court-packing as they look towards 2028. Pete Buttigieg said this year that he supported expanding the court, having proposed a bipartisan expansion in 2019. Kamala Harris endorsed adding four Democratic judges in August. Further to the Left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna have also touted the idea.

The notion that the court should be larger is not, in itself, a revolutionary idea. There are more federal laws than there were in 1869, when the court’s membership was set at nine. There are also, as Clinton notes, more circuit courts of appeal now. More circuits and more cases also mean more disagreement among the circuit courts. The Supreme Court’s main job is to resolve such splits, and ensure uniform federal law throughout the nation.

But court-packing was seen as a fringe platform until fairly recently. Ever since Franklin Roosevelt tried and failed to pack the court in 1937, mainstream politicians have stayed away from the idea — yet that is changing.

Expanding the Supreme Court on a partisan basis is a direct assault on the rule of law and neutral principles that make liberal democracy possible. The politicians who want to keep adding judges until they win are not looking for disinterested legal decisions based on the actual words of the law; they want to win, and their nominees will see the court as a battleground for political power, not a forum for applying neutral principles.

If Democrats think expanding the court is moral and just, would they object if Trump proposed that Congress do the same thing right now, when Republicans are in charge? A question that any political actor should ask when calling for a new policy is: how would I like this idea if my opponents were the ones in charge? One perplexing part of the Democrats’ court plan is that their opponents are in charge of the White House until at least 2029 and of the Senate until at least January of next year. If Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress proposed identical policies, Democrats would decry them as the end of democracy. But it’s OK when they do it?

Benjamin Franklin’s famous quip that the Constitution’s authors had made “a republic, if you can keep it”, expresses a relevant truth of human nature: a republic founded on high ideals will constantly be assailed by those who would bring it low, subvert it to their own ends, and leave it in tatters when they are through.

Democrats used to talk a good game on this topic. They used to say things like “democracy is on the ballot” which, while not totally accurate, was at least a gesture in the direction of our old American principles. But the politics of despair are gaining ground — in both parties.

Now, in 2026, facing her own fading relevancy, and recognising the growth of the radical faction within her party, Clinton has given up the fight and joined the radical opposition.