There’s an emerging consensus among Matthew Yglesias, Chuck Schumer, Noam Scheiber, and Dan Gerstein (sub. required) on the lesson of the Alito defeat: namely, that it is nearly impossible for a party that does not control any of the branches of government to defeat Supreme Court nominees (particularly given the Democrats’ structural disadvantage in the Senate), and that the way to win victories in the judicial arena is to win elections.

This analysis is precisely right. And it’s especially relevant right now, when many Democrats are bemoaning their defeat, rather than focusing on encouraging future trends. The key lesson of Erickson, MacKuen and Stimson’s Macro Polity is that the “public mood” shifts in the opposite direction of the president. As a conservative president takes the country to the right, the public shifts back to the left, and vice versa. We’re already starting to see this process take place, as Republicans are starting to realize. In fact, Dick Morris writes in The Hill that “the data are becoming overwhelming that the nation is moving left and is likely to stay that way through at least the 2006 election — and, if President Bush doesn’t adjust, for a lot longer.”

Some may say that the courts can still impose their will. But if the public shifts left and Democrats win elections, it will largely hamstring Alito and the Court. Recent political science scholarship shows that the Court is highly responsive to Congress and the President (JSTOR sub. required) and public opinion (PDF). Alito and Roberts may still do damage around the margins, but they are far less likely to engage in major reversals of precedent in a liberal political climate.