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The institutions reassert their authority by cracking down, making showy examples of people, and changing people's incentives toward compliance as needed.
Which is why, to the (debatable) extent "consent of the governed" ever existed, it will be removed. Most of the history of large, settled societies has been a tiny elite ruling over a vast body of disenfranchised, ground-down peasants. I see no reason why our current society could not be run the same (to the extent it isn't already there).
What was the mechanism by which William and his fellow Normans ruled the Anglo-Saxons? How did any Chinese emperor rule a realm as large and populous as China? How did the East India Company end up with power over the subcontinent? How did the Romans successfully suppress revolt after revolt against their rule for century after century?
I would dispute this characterization of these decisions. Dobbs was a purely symbolic victory; one where there were plenty of legal minds on the other side who, even though they agreed with Roe's outcome, thought it was on shaky ground as a legal ruling; and which has had negligible effect on actual abortion rates. And I remember when the affirmative action decision came out, people were already pointing out how schools in California have been straightforwardly bypassing the similar state-level restriction with 'totally-not-a-quota "holistic admissions,"' and that the majority decision itself lays out the start of a path for academia to essentially ignore it. These are more a feather duster than a wrecking ball.
How, exactly? What means does the Court have to enforce any decision it might make against them?
Again, I don't see how that could work.
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