And yet even if public opinion turns against the Court, it’s not clear that progressives will be in a position to translate that backlash into meaningful reform. Overturning Roe may be unpopular. But so is expanding the Supreme Court. Amid the Amy Coney Barrett hearings in 2020, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that 58 percent of Americans opposed increasing the number of justices on the high court, while 31 percent supported it. It is difficult to see how the Court’s power could be meaningfully checked, at least in the medium term. To force Joe Manchin’s hand on Supreme Court reform, the backlash to the Roberts Court would need to extend far into red America. After the 2022 midterms, meanwhile, Republicans are likely to control at least one chamber of Congress.

In other words: Even if the Court overreaches on abortion and forfeits its popular support, the conservative judicial project is likely to endure. And given Roberts’s current poll numbers, it’s not even clear that Roe’s invalidation will durably erode public reverence for the judiciary.

No matter how events unfurl from here, Roberts has already established himself as the greatest Republican politician of his generation. No other conservative has managed to realize as many of the movement’s ideological goals at so little political cost. And if you don’t think that Roberts can be fairly described as a politician, well, that only confirms the enormity of his achievement.