Donald Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to fill Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court does not matter, although it matters a great deal. The Supreme Court is not important, except it is of surpassing importance.

Judicial politics are contradictory like that. Any strategy for responding to the Gorsuch nomination and Trump’s judicial agenda more broadly must begin with an appreciation of these paradoxes, and a clear-eyed view of the Supreme Court’s conservative constitutional role.

It is not a matter of opposing Gorsuch because of his originalism — still less of defending the judiciary from capture by conservative jurisprudence. It is a matter of resisting the judiciary itself as a reactionary institution. It is about focusing on the Court, not on Trump’s pick. A movement of mass opposition and disruption must target institutions rather than individuals, power rather than personalities.