In examining this month’s Pew Research Center data on Americans’ views of the Supreme Court, a somewhat puzzling question presents itself. That question isn’t why the court has just fallen to a new low in the popular estimation, because the explanation for this development is obvious: already sporting record unpopularity earlier this year, June’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling has only underscored the threat the court poses to basic rights and the obscenity of empowering an unelected council of judicial functionaries in robes to oversee them.

No, what’s most striking is that the Supreme Court has managed to remain so resoundingly popular for so many decades. Among Democrats and Republicans alike, in fact, it until quite recently commanded solid majorities in favorable opinion — oscillating somewhat depending on which party held the White House but basically maintaining broad public support.

For that reason, those who view the warm perception of powerful institutions as an end in itself are liable to be especially troubled by Pew’s latest findings. Not only is the court manifestly unpopular, but opinions of it now map cleanly onto partisan identity as well. Democrats, who still held an overwhelmingly favorable view of the Supreme Court during the first part of the Donald Trump presidency, are now strongly negative toward it. Republican support, on the other hand, steadily declined after Bush II and had sunk to a record low by the end of Barack Obama’s second term. Today, just as unsurprisingly, conservatives have suddenly rediscovered their faith in the institution and are predisposed to see it in a positive light.