Whenever Justice Amy Coney Barrett arrived at an auditorium or a library or a university last month to discuss her new book, she encountered a familiar sight: protesters.
They lined the streets, chanting and carrying signs. One wore a handmaid’s costume, a symbol of oppression. Another was dressed as liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death in 2020 created a vacancy on the Supreme Court that President Trump would fill with Barrett.
For Barrett, protesters have become routine, another logistical wrinkle in her everyday life, much like the ones who regularly gather at her home outside Washington, D.C., where she lives with her husband and younger children. What surprises her, she told me in a wide-ranging interview in her chambers late last month, is how she can let it roll off her back.
The violence against people in positions of power is a form of self-correction. We need to simply let it happen. The Supreme Court, the executive branch, these are not celebrities or dictators. They are public servants, put in place to fulfill the will of the people.
We’ve strayed so far off script that we’ve lost sight of the plot.
Throughout history, the violent overthrow of corrupt governments has been a time-honored human tradition, one that, from time to time, feeds the tree of liberty.