Public opinion of SCOTUS does not matter.
Yes. Governments derive their authority and legitimacy from the consent of the governed. You can talk about how important it is to separate legal analysis from public opinion all you want, but it is simply not sustainable for one of the branches of government to walk around with such an abysmal approval rating.
How low can these approval ratings get before you'll agree that it may be a problem? 20%? 10%? 5%?
At some point, that lack of approval is going to disturb the people enough that they will not take it lying down. And I'm not even (necessarily) referring to an armed rebellion, I'm talking about a "now let him enforce it" response from the states and the other branches of government.
It depends on prioritization. At the time the Supreme Court decided
Loving, support for interracial marriage in the US was in the single-digits, but the decision was ultimately enforced because it was not in anyone's interest to go against the Court for other reasons. There is precedent in US history for 2/3 majorities 'defeating' the Court -- in the 1860s and again in the 1930s -- but that seems really unlikely to happen now. (Also, I suspect 31% is just an outlier; SCOTUS's approval has been in the low-to-mid 40s for a long time).
As I've noted elsewhere, without 1860s/1930s-era levels of backlash, the Supreme Court is usually a leading indicator for cultural and governmental changes (most prominently in the 1950s/1960s).
Public opinion of SCOTUS does not matter.
Of course it does, because the public elects the legislators that have the power to completely destroy it through "court reform" or packing it. We already had one of the major parties cautiously testing the waters with threats of expanding the court back in 2020, so if SCOTUS is going to be really unpopular, they have no reason not to make that a reality next time they have a trifecta.
Right, so after 1980, this has been achieved thrice (1992, 2008, and 2020), or on average once every 14 years. In practice, this is getting harder for Democrats over time even under landslide conditions because liberals tend to abandon small conservative rural states (only the 2008 majority had enough cushion from moderates that it probably
could have done this had it wanted to; it chose to spend political capital on healthcare instead). This probably isn't happening for a very long time (and
if it does, it probably means that the Democratic party has become a very different institution, which might have a very different relationship with the current Supreme Court).
Next time they have a trifecta is...mathematically 2032*, so over a decade from now, but realistically probably somewhat later? The issues and the culture are going to have changed
a lot.
(Note that 2020 also involved insane luck: the Democratic Senate majority was built off
both multiple legacy Senators in red states, like Manchin/Tester/Brown,
and getting multiple bites at the apple with special elections in GA and AZ. I think a three-election string of D+2/D+8/D+5, like 2016/2018/2020 were, is actually moderately
unlikely to produce Democratic Senate majorities moving forward.)
*Well, actually 2034, but it's really hard to achieve a trifecta at a midterm -- even the Democratic landslide of 2022 couldn't manage it -- so I'll round favorably here and say 2032 rather than 2036.
