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Much as with the whims of the Pope as discussed below, “the constitution” is fake because it can be made and has been made to say whatever SCOTUS wants countless times throughout history depending on the temporal political whims of those in power. None of this (some adherence to ‘the constitution’) matters because it has never mattered.
The more interesting question is what SCOTUS will decide is more politically desirable. My guess is they’ll reverse the decision. Not doing so would be an interesting gambit. But I also think it would be very bad for the right, not only because it’s possible nobody other than Trump can beat Biden now, and because Trump will still be a primary candidate in many states, messing up the whole process, but because in a grand irony I don’t think American conservatives have any real insurrection in them.
If Trump is barred there will be no civil war, no great five million man March to Washington. Maybe a few militia rallies, perhaps even some minor terrorism (though I consider a serious thing quite unlikely), and endless gnashing of teeth and wailing online. But in the end Republicans will go home. They have too much to lose, and amusingly as the retirees-on-museum-trip vibe of Jan 6 showed, they don’t even have the willpower to LARP as real revolutionaries, let alone to do it.
The constitution matters. Yes, people will blatantly work around it, but they do at least need to feel that they can make a token effort, and, as long as they're not the supreme court, they need to think they have SCOTUS on their side. It at least acts as a deterrent, even if it can be bulldozed over in the long run.
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