This is kind of a
scary reflection of what decades of conservative pounding on so-called "activist judges" does to public opinion.
Americans are divided on whether the Supreme Court should base its rulings on its understanding of what the Constitution means in current times or whether those rulings should be strictly based on the Constitution as written, as had been argued by tea party movement adherents and many conservatives. Fully half (50%) said the Constitution should be interpreted to take into account modern times while 45% say the justices should base their understanding on what the Constitution meant as written.
The survey is a couple of months old, but still instructive. Delving more deeply into Pew Research Center's findings, it would seem that more conservatives hold tea party-like views on the constitution than actually claim to belong to the tea party.
In the Pew Research Center's political typology survey, released May 4, 70% of Republicans said the Supreme Court should base its rulings on its understanding of the Constitution as originally written; 65% of Democrats said the Court should base its rulings on what the Constitution means today.
The differences are even starker when viewed through the political typology, which sorts people based on their values, political beliefs and partisan affiliation.
Constitutional originalism draws overwhelming support from Staunch Conservatives, who are mostly older white males and include the largest percentage of Tea Party supporters (72%) of any group. Fully 88% of Staunch Conservatives say the Supreme Court should base its understanding of the Constitution on how it was originally written. Among other Republican and GOP-leaning groups—Main Street Republicans, Libertarians and Disaffecteds—smaller majorities favor an originalist approach.
Solid Liberals—who are mostly highly politically engaged, pro-government seculars—reject constitutional originalism by nearly the same margin as Staunch Conservatives support it: 81% say the Court should base its rulings on its understanding of what the Constitution means in current times, while just 15% say justices should base their rulings on an understanding of what the Constitution means as it was originally written.
It's the full-on 70 percent of Republicans, and fully 45 percent of Americans, who are basically in the Scalia camp (probably without realizing what exactly that means) that's really disturbing. It's even more disturbing when you look at the very thin thread by which a rational Supreme Court now hangs.