Such efforts may help raise money and win elections, but the chance that they will actually change the court, in the near or medium term, is remote. Even if the Democrats win the White House and hold the Senate, the court’s demographics are likely to trump politics. The average age of the four more liberal justices is 74; the five conservatives average a youthful (for federal judges) 61, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. the youngest at 52.

Confronting that reality, some liberal legal scholars suggest that beyond political tactics, what the left urgently needs is a long-term strategy built around an affirmative message of what the Constitution means and what the enterprise of constitutional interpretation should be about.