By Ari Berman

Conservatives have long focused on the Court, railing against “activist judges” since the days of Brown v. Board of Education. Progressives are only now fully comprehending the dangers of a judiciary dominated by conservatives, who have spent decades cultivating their strength through institutions like the Federalist Society. “The conservative base is much more energized and aggressive about the Court than the progressive base,” says Doug Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a center-left legal advocacy group. “Progressives are fighting against a thirty-to-forty-year mobilization effort against the Warren Court and Roe v. Wade.”