We are in the midst of an unprecedented judicial disaster. With the elevation of Amy Coney Barrett, not only is the current Supreme Court now dominated by a six-to-three conservative supermajority, but a full third of the justices worked on the Republican legal team in Bush v. Gore. This Republican domination is true in the lower federal courts as well; Trump-appointed judges now occupy more than a quarter of the federal judiciary. The conservative legal project has succeeded.

In recognition of this catastrophe, many Democrats have begun to voice support for an idea that, until recently, would have been considered unacceptably radical or outright insane: court packing. Democratic politicians across the political spectrum — from Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Chuck Schumer and Steve Bullock — have either toyed with or embraced the strategy of expanding the court beyond its familiar nine justices, of counteracting conservative judicial hegemony by adding some number of left-leaning jurists. Even Joe Biden — who, a year ago, flatly rejected court packing — has recently bowed to pressure from his left and expressed an openness to the idea, telling 60 Minutes that, if elected, he would appoint a bipartisan commission of legal scholars to study court reform.

Court packing specifics vary greatly, from the almost comically inept two seats being considered by many mainstream Democrats, to the six proposed by Take Back the Court founder Aaron Belkin, to the ten put forth by journalist Elie Mystal. Some have noted that packing the Supreme Court is not enough; Democrats should pack the lower federal courts as well. In spite of these differences, for the first time in almost a century, court packing seems like a viable strategy for the Democratic Party.