They are shocked, shocked!

Five senate Democrats are shocked and appalled that Republicans' readings of the constitution reflect their politics and sometimes favor the interests of Republican constituencies or donors.

And they warn darkly that, if the Supremes don't rule as they desire on a Second Amendment case now before them, the already wavering trust of the American people in the judicial integrity of the court will be further compromised and the public may demand it be restructured to reduce the influence of politics.

They threaten court-packing, in other words.

The opening salvo, the first of many to come, in a barrage of propaganda aiming to soften up public opinion and prepare it for just such a move, that many Democrats, including me, think the Dems ought to do if they can, as soon as they can?

Maybe.

And I suppose it was inevitable that such Dem propaganda would have to pretend, as Republican propaganda about interpretation of the constitution always does, that there is a single reading, or a narrow range of readings, of the constitution that any honest and objective student of the thing would arrive at, sufficient to decide all or damned near all cases or controversies, and especially cases in which the political, social, cultural, legal, or economic stakes are greatest.

But that is a fantasy suitable for children, like Santa Claus and the Elf on the Shelf.

The truth, entirely contrary to that notion, is that the constitution is so riddled with obscurity, generality, and imprecision of language and so undermined by glaring lacunae that nothing at all can get to readings sufficiently lucid and apposite to decide controversies but the political, moral, religious, or other personal and somehow relevant beliefs, commitments, or even interests of the reader.

Even the question whether and how far judges must feel themselves bound by what they admit to be, as there will be in many but by no means all cases, the evident meaning of some key passage of the thing, can be decided on no other basis than these.

And it is also a fantasy that people do not understand all that very well, and that just that is why the parties' choices of not only judicial philosophies or constitutional interpretations but of judges are entirely and necessarily a function of the political, moral, religious, or other somehow relevant beliefs, commitments, or interests of their members, constituencies, or donors.

But the broad masses include the massively stupid and naive.

And so the multiple and manifold lines of propaganda brought forth for this fight must include threads variously addressed to diverse elements of the constituencies involved.

To Save a Bad Gun Law, Democratic Senators Threaten the Supreme Court

It is a bad gun law, by the way.

Update 081819.

It's also possible this will, and may have been intended to, warn off the Supremes from overturning Roe or anything significantly related to it.