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Notes -
I don't think that's quite right. I think they see the supreme court as fundamentally about policy—which is better: A or B? I think we agree that people think like that. Moreover, if they have any knowledge of the facts of the case at hand, they will usually think that their side is correct, because they trust the people on their side to convey things accurately. In that context, the people on the other side of the supreme court are clearly doing what they are doing because they have bad values or corruption, and are finding justifications for the things they want, rather than doing what's objectively correct. They don't need to consider whether they're actually good at reasoning, they only need to think the conservative justices are able to generate some nonsense justification. And so they don't need to conceptualize the supreme court justices as very smart.
At least, for those who aren't looking at the law itself.
I'll also note that it's not as if most conservative people have much higher of an opinion of the liberal justices, although at least the conservatives are more willing to think of the supreme court about law, rather than policy, I think.
As a result of this, I think I'm more likely than you to think that liberals are willing to recognize that the supreme court justices are doing things because of values they have. That is, they'd think that the legal arguments are disingenuous, but think that they have genuine, but wrong, terminal values.
At least, that's how I, a non-leftist, read rank-and-file leftists.
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