According to the analytics and advisory company Gallup, Americans’ opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court “are the worst they have been in 50 years of polling.”

 

In October 2022, Gallup found that “47 percent of U.S. adults say they have ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ of trust in the judicial branch of the federal government that is headed by the Supreme Court.” However, that number “represented a 20-percentage-point drop in just two years, including seven points since just the year before, and was the lowest in Gallup’s trend by six points.” By July 2025, that number had dropped to 39 percent.

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This is a huge problem. We cannot have Americans lose trust in the American judiciary. It just cannot happen.

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In our minds, the primary reason the highest Court in the land has gotten such a bad rap is the perception that it has become insanely ideological and political. This is highly concerning – understandably – to Americans since the Supreme Court essentially has the final word on our fate as citizens.

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…which is why Justice Clarence Thomas must be held accountable for his corrupt behavior (read more here), and what makes Justice Samuel Alito’s breathtakingly bad judgement so damaging.

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​​​​On May 16, 2024, The New York Times reported that an upside-down American flag had flown outside the Alito’s home after the 2020 presidential election. Although the upside-down flag has always been a sign of emergency and distress for the military, in the weeks after the 2020 election and subsequent January 6th insurrection it was embraced by supporters of “Stop the Steal” (i.e., those who believed the false narrative that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Donald Trump). In fact, many Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th carried upside-down American flags for this reason.

 

This is obviously not a great look for a sitting U.S. Supreme Court Justice on any day, but especially not at a time when the Court was actively deciding – and would continue to decide – whether to hear cases surrounding the 2020 election, the Capitol riots, and Donald Trump himself. But it didn’t stop there. Less than a week after the first New York Times report, it was discovered that a second flag – known as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag – was flown outside the Alito’s vacation home during the summer and fall of 2023. The Appeal to Heaven flag, also carried by Trump supporters on January 6th, is yet another flag that has been embraced in support of the “Stop the Steal” movement (as well as Christian Nationalism and other far-right causes).

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Justice Alito’s actions don’t rise to the level of impeachment – since, according to the U.S. Constitution, impeachment should be reserved for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” – but, at a minimum, given the circumstances he should have recused himself from any case involving January 6th and/or Donald Trump’s involvement on that day.​

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Justice Alito repeatedly said that his wife was “solely responsible” for flying the flags – which is not hard for anyone to believe after she was secretly recorded at a party saying “I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month” – but he is delusional if he thinks he can just blame outrageously bad judgement on his wife going forward. In our minds, Justice Alito gets one mulligan. That’s it.

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< Just a gossipy side note: The secret recordings almost make you feel bad that Justice Alito has to put up with this from Martha-Ann. She said at one point that, after her husband asked her to please not fly flags, she agreed but then told him, “When you are free of this nonsense, I’m putting it up and I’m going to send them a message every day, maybe every week. I’ll be changing the flags.” How old is she, twelve? Ugh. And can you imagine her telling her husband – A U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE – that his job is nonsense? >

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Episodes like this are causing enormous damage. For the American judicial system to work, there must be enormous trust between judges and the American public – meaning our judges must be seen as fair and impartial. If they are not, the entire thing falls apart. This goes tenfold for the Justices that sit on the bench of the U.S. Supreme Court. Not only can Justices have no conflicts of interest; there cannot be even the appearance of any.

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< Sidebar: In November 2023, under enormous pressure, the Supreme Court Justices released a Code of Conduct to “set out succinctly and gather in one place the ethics rules and principles that guide the conduct of the Members of the Court.” The language is broad – for example, it prohibits Justices from letting “family, social, political, financial or other relationships influence official conduct or judgment,” and engaging in activities that “detract from the dignity of the justice’s office,” “interfere with the performance of the justice’s official duties,” or “reflect adversely on the justice’s impartiality” – and offers no ideas on how to enforce the code or specific examples of compromised “activities” (i.e., expensive trips, R.V.s, and other perks given to them by rich friends). We guess we’ll just have to wait and see if this is a serious attempt at changing behavior, or just a gaslight maneuver to try to squelch bad press. >