On the erudite and thorough SCOTUSBlog, I just picked up this, about the Kavanaugh nomination, from Justice Elena Kagan who was giving a speech at UCLA. My bolding:
At UCLA Law, Kagan declined to comment on the confirmation process (“I think given the events of today, that’s the one question I’m not going to answer,” the Associated Press quoted her as saying.). Kagan did talk about the current justices’ extensive efforts at consensus-building, according to the Daily Bruin. Perhaps presciently, she noted: “The court’s strength as an institution of American governance depends on people believing it has a certain kind of legitimacy–on people believing it’s not simply just an extension of politics, that its decision making has a kind of integrity to it. If people don’t believe that, they have no reason to accept what the court does.”
She said it. What of course she couldn’t say or predict is what will happen if and when we “have no reason to accept what the court does.”
That, I think, will be a form of civil war.