The Supreme Court’s defenders need a lesson in public relations

For the last year, the Supreme Court’s critics have largely succeeded in driving a narrative that the court has lost its legitimacy. Appalled by the Dobbs abortion decision, and full of (now-confirmed) fears that the court would overturn affirmative action precedents and knock down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan, they’ve used every trick in the book to drive down public opinion.

Their goal is clear: to convince voters that the court is dangerous, and the only solution is to elect a president and senators who will seat liberal justices.

It’s working. Just one month after the Dobbs ruling, public approval of the court had fallen to 38 percent — compared with 60 percent a year prior. A few months later, a Marquette Law School poll found that at least half the country was open to expanding the Supreme Court.

The offensive has come from all corners, leaving the court’s defenders little time to adjust to one attack — such as ProPublica’s investigations into leading conservative justices — before a new attack arises — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) calling the court “authoritarian,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer ­(D-N.Y.) trying to create new oversight and Biden calling the court a “MAGA crowd.”

With the 2024 elections just 16 months away, the Supreme Court’s beleaguered defenders have limited time to rebalance the public opinion scales. Constitutional and originalist arguments look great in a white paper, but they don’t sell to voters whose emotions drive them more than history and the Constitution do. On the other extreme, it’s easy to “own the libs” with counterpunching, but that won’t win undecided voters who are being told by virtually every major American media outlet that the high court is a danger to the nation.

The court’s defenders need to go back to public relations basics, and fast, before the critics’ narrative drives panicked voters to the 2024 polls.

First, remember the target audience. Knocking AOC down a peg might feel good, but what does it do to sway undecided voters? This is the narrow segment of voters that matters most, and these people aren’t really paying attention to the Twitter-verse of political punching and counterpunching. In fact, they’re exhausted by it … but they’re also not educated on why originalism matters, or whether the conflict-of-interest claims against Justices Thomas and Alito amount to anything.

Second, know what sells with that target audience. The grocery store Aldi claims to have the lowest prices — and the company has national studies to prove it. Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in 2008 in part because Ted Kennedy’s endorsement was the gold standard for older, white, conservative Democrats — and Kennedy broke for Obama. Supreme Court defenders can go on offense with the same strategy, citing key data points that rely on facts instead of opinions and sources voters will trust:

• An annual report shows that the court’s median justice is in line with the ideological norm going back three decades, and that the average conservative justice is about as conservative as the average liberal justice is liberal.
• Last term’s liberal-friendly decisions from the court, such as a redistricting decision that will likely favor Democratic voter constituencies and rejecting challenges to Biden administration immigration rules and Native American adoption priorities, and ruling that Alabama’s redistricting may violate the Voting Rights Act. These are hardly “MAGA crowd” decisions that a “racist” court would make.
• The justices sticking together, like with the 9-0 win in favor of the Christian who wanted Sundays off from work and the April letter all nine justices signed to defend the court from Senate oversight. This shows that while the “conservative/liberal” split is real, it is likely not as large as it is portrayed.
• Most Americans support the decisions about student loan forgiveness, affirmative action and business owners’ free speech. Supporting the court’s “controversial” decisions puts moderate voters in good company.

Third, use the principles of “surround-sound” marketing and branding to put the pro-court narrative in front of target audiences as often and in as many ways as possible. Obama did this with data-driven, micro-targeted TV ads that conservatives mocked — and it earned him the White House. Trump did it in 2016 with several simple messages that used Facebook’s algorithms to spread his supporters’ engagement like wildfire. The Supreme Court’s defenders must reach moderate voters where they are: on social media, listening to relevant influencers and campaign ads, and absorbing corporate media like CNN, NPR and the New York Times.

Today’s political culture relies heavily on the crises, opportunities and politics of right now. But the court’s critics didn’t just jump into criticizing after Dobbs; they built alliances and messaging for years that were ready to accelerate at the press of a button. The court’s defenders must take the same long-term campaign approach, or they may find themselves producing beautiful white papers, “owning the libs” … and losing the court.

Dustin Siggins founded the media relations firm Proven Media Solutions. His work has appeared in national outlets such as Newsweek, USA Today and Forbes.