Donald Trump’s undisguised authoritarianism creates a quandary for Republicans who believe in the rule of law. Most of them have decided they either don’t care about or actively endorse Trump’s refusal to accept defeat, plans to abuse power against his enemies, and so on. A small principled handful have decided to oppose him in order to uphold democracy and the Constitution. In between lies the anti-anti-Trump right, formally critical of the party’s cult leader yet unable to break with him.

The key premise of the anti-anti-Trump right is that, while Trump may be vulgar and even dangerous, the Democrats are equally threatening to the republic. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was “totalitarian.” In 2020, Joe Biden would “suppress any and all opposition” and pursue “runaway leftism and the destruction of American institutions.” The threat of the totalitarian Democrat is a foundational element of the anti-anti-Trump worldview.

The idea that serves this necessary role in 2024 is the proposal floating around Democratic politics to reform the Supreme Court. These reforms would constitute “radical and dangerous changes in our form of government,” argues Ramesh Ponnuru. National Review’s Dan McLaughlin calls the plan the Democrats’ “Own January 6 for the courts” and an “authoritarian coup.” And so, once again, the authoritarian issue is a tie, freeing up conservatives from the painful necessity of breaking cleanly with their own indefensible nominee.

Kamala Harris’s supposed threat to reform the Court is a debaters’ point, rather than a realistic fear. Harris’s own commitment to the issue is minimal, as activists supporting it lament. Even if she favored it, the Senate is extremely unlikely to have a Democratic majority, let alone a majority of Democrats willing to endorse procedural reforms far more drastic than ones the party has previously blanched at. And even in the wildly unlikely event that Democrats muster concurrent majorities for Court reform in both chambers, and eliminate the filibuster to pass it, the whole thing is almost certain to be struck down by the Supreme Court — which, after all, is controlled by conservative Republicans who very much do oppose any change that would threaten their grip on power.

But even as........

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