In a revealing portrait of the Supreme Court, the former legal affairs editor of Newsweek, David A. Kaplan, takes us into the secret world of the nine justices. He shows how too often the Court has become the most dangerous branch of government, subverting the will of the people.
The Supreme Court has never been more central in American life. It is the justices, rather than Congress and other elected officials, who decide the most controversial social issues -- from abortion and same-sex marriage, to gun control, campaign finance and voting rights. Two centuries ago Alexander Hamilton described the Court as “the least dangerous branch,” but that’s no longer true. The Court is so important that many voters in the 2016 presidential election made their choice based on whom they thought their candidate would name to the Court. The most consequential decision President Trump may have made was appointing Neil Gorsuch, the new justice.
Based on exclusive interviews with the justices, dozens of their law clerks, and key government officials, Kaplan provides fresh details on the personalities of the justices – Clarence Thomas’s simmering rage, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s embrace of celebrity, Anthony Kennedy’s self-aggrandizement, and the feud between Gorsuch and Chief Justice John Roberts.
Kaplan shatters the myth that all the justices do is act like umpires who call balls and strikes. But the arrogance of the Court is not rooted in partisanship: conservative justices and liberal justices alike are guilty of overreach.
In a sweeping narrative that goes behind the scenes of the Marble Temple, Kaplan challenges conventional wisdom about the Court’s transcendent power. The Most Dangerous Branch is sure to provoke both sides of the political aisle.
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