Could the USA function if the Supreme Court whittled down to 0?

[SteveRogers]

The federal law would vary between appellate court circuits as the different courts in some cases come to different rulings, with no higher court to reconcile them. In some cases, that might force Congress to pass additional legislation. So it would be difficult and inconvenient, but hardly the apocalypse.

I think the bigger problem would be that there would be no federal check on state Supreme Court decisions. That's kind of a problem if you're hoping to protect constitutional rights.

[SteveRogers]

Without the Supreme Court? Not particularly smoothly, but yes. Without the entire federal judiciary? In a word, no.

The fact that this possibility is even being discussed shows that we really need to stop picking Supreme Court Justices based on ideology. I could care less about CU, and am fine with a new VRA, but any existing ideas about picking justices who will institute an absolute ban on regulating abortion, and/or who will essentially abolish the 2nd amendment, and/or who will essentially abolish freedom of religion, and/or allow polygamy, honestly needs to stop. That's nothing more than left-wing judicial activism. At the same time, the right needs to shut up any existing rhetoric about finding a judge who will declare ObamaCare to be unconstitutional, or who will declare transgenderism to be a mental illness, or who will place a blanket ban on any sort of regulation on guns, or who will overturn Obergefell. That's nothing more than right-wing judicial activism. (I do believe it is essential that we get rid of Roe eventually, and do not consider that judicial activism) The correct path forward is through centrist judges who will rule based on the law and not based on a political agenda.

Oddly enough, the existing nominee for Scalia's seat could very well be the sort of person we need.

Are you honestly saying that judicial activism is defined as everything the court does that you don't agree with?

In all fairness, that's basically the only way that anybody on either side ever uses that term.