Yeah, that's a nice story, but it's not what we have in practice. In the real world, the Court arbitrarily decided that the incentives the ACA created to expand Medicaid were excessively powerful and states should be allowed to opt out of expansion without losing access to existing federal funding streams. There is absolutely no basis for this idea anywhere in the text of the Constitution — and millions of Americans have been deprived of their health insurance as a result. In the real world, we have the case of Bush v. Gore, a refusal to look at the problem of partisan gerrymandering, a series of judicial decisions striking down efforts to regulate the campaign finance system, the Shelby County v. Holder decision in which five conservative justices arbitrarily decided that racially motivated voter suppression was no longer a problem, etc. etc. In what world are rulings like these not prescriptive?
I don't see how any of that contradicts what I said. I'm not saying any of those rulings were arrived at correctly. Rather they were cases between parties in which the Supreme Court gave opinions, and the "striking down" aspect is yours, and the political world's, interpretation of the practical effect of those rulings.
Like how would things be different if there was no judicial review. Take the medicaid expansion. Lower courts should not follow the precedent? Each state that doesn't want the medicaid expansion has to get their exemption individually from the SCOTUS? What's the point? It's going to be the same result each time, only with a lot of time and money wasted getting there.
