Ostensibly well-sourced reporters covering the Supreme Court seemed shocked that the highest court in the land expressed deep skepticism over the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine’s contention that the Food and Drug Administration has not properly approved the widespread dissemination of mifepristone, the drug that triggers a chemical abortion.

“In theory, this should have been catnip to the revanchist Supreme Court, which has in recent years enthusiastically taken up legal challenges meant to erode abortion access, curtail civil rights, and weaken federal agencies like the FDA,” the Guardian’s Moira Donegan wrote of the case, which argued in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday. “But with the court’s approval at an all-time low in the wake of Dobbs, and with a looming November election to be determined in a large part by public outrage over women’s rights, even the court’s most enthusiastic enemies of abortion access and federal regulation found themselves with limited appetite to allow plaintiffs to limit access to a safe and popular drug nationwide.”

While Donegan’s whines particularly appeal to pathos, this criticism echoes the same one lobbed at the bench in increasing volume and frequency over the past decade at least: that the pinnacle of the federal judiciary is an inherently illegitimate body composed of justices whose seats were stolen (either by George W. Bush in the 2000 election or Donald Trump with the assistance of the Russians in 2016) and one whose sole goals are political.

Of course, this axiom is fundamental to the progressive project, which cannot allow its ambitions to be curtailed by the Constitution, and increasingly, it’s the Supreme Court, not any other convention, that is the only thing standing between norm-defying partisans wishing to win at all costs and their accomplishments. It’s why the endorsement of court-packing has become a litmus test for Democratic candidates in the same way nuking the judicial filibuster became 15 years ago. Democrats think that Supreme Court justices on both sides of the metaphorical aisle are just as cynical as they are.

But of course, even after all the supposed hell raised by Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that still is not the case. While the court, sadly, like all facets of political life, has become more polarized, it remains much more consensus-driven than Congress and certainly more than the media would have you believe.

Whereas the court came to a unanimous decision in an average of 43% of cases over the past decade, only 29% resulted in a 9-0 ruling in the 2021 to 2022 term. But 9-0 and 8-1 rulings combined comprised about half of all rulings, and during the 2022 to 2023 term, a staggering 48% of all rulings were unanimous.

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And to the extent that “partisan” bias persists — that is, a bent of deontological jurisprudence, not teleological hackery — it sways to the Left. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, infamously appointed by Trump after one of the most desperate Hail Marys in Democratic history, is as likely to vote with Justice Samuel Alito, appointed by Bush, as he is with Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who were appointed by Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, respectively. Furthermore, the justice with whom Kavanaugh is the least likely to vote is Clarence Thomas, a similar survivor of a left-wing character assassination attempt.

So when leftists balk at the court’s unanimous finding that Colorado cannot disenfranchise half its population and strip Trump from its 2024 ballot, they’re not only missing the minutiae of the court’s consensus-driven character. They’re also willfully rejecting the court’s unique role as the last remaining bastion between centuries of principles versus the abyss. If the court comes out with an 8-1 ruling against the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the only people pretending to be surprised will be those with a stake in the narrative that the court prioritizes petty politicking over precedent.