A number of Americans believe that the United States Supreme Court, fueled by an expansion of its conservative majority under President Donald Trump, has unleashed an assault on freedoms long considered untouchable. Their perception is that the Court has started a war on (among other things) voting rights and abortion rights in a quest to remake significant jurisprudence with which conservatives disagree. A number of Americans have erupted in rage against the Court on the stated basis that it refuses to adhere to even its own originalist ideology as it nakedly pursues the political priorities of the Republican Party. But these Americans should first ask themselves one question: where were they on November 4, 2014?

Voter turnout for the 2014 midterm elections was the lowest recorded since World War II. The elections, under any metric, were a blowout for the Republican Party. Held at the midpoint of President Barack Obama’s second term, Republicans won governorships in liberal states like Massachusetts and Illinois and won a total of 247 House seats. At the top of the ticket, Republicans wrested a whopping nine Senate seats from Democratic control, installing Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as Senate Majority Leader.

Then in February 2015, after conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died, McConnell made clear that the high court vacancy would not be filled until a new president was in office. McConnell blocked President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from receiving a confirmation hearing or vote. After 2016 and Donald Trump’s unexpected defeat of Hillary Clinton to become this country’s 45th President, Republicans had the opportunity of a lifetime to reshape both the Supreme Court and the broader federal judiciary.

Trump’s election meant that Obama’s moderate pick, Garland, was replaced by the staunchly conservative Neil Gorsuch in 2017. Just one year later in 2018, Trump was able to replace moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy with a controversial conservative choice, Brett Kavanaugh.

McConnell, for his part, led Senate Republicans in confirming over two hundred  conservatives to other lifetime posts in the federal judiciary. Finally, in what is perceived by many Democrats to be a particularly grievous insult, in late 2020, Republicans closed ranks to confirm conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the Court after the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – only weeks before the 2020 election.

The GOP majority in the upper chamber survived for six years before succumbing to Democratic gains in the 2020 elections, when the Republican freshmen elected in 2014 were up for re-election. It is likely that the many millions of eligible Democratic voters who abstained from voting in 2014 are in part responsible for the fall of Roe v. Wade and other legal reversals issued by the current Court. That is because had Democrats held the Senate in 2014 – even by a threadbare 50-seat majority – the makeup of the Court would be radically different today. Senate Democrats would have been able to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court and forced Donald Trump into nominating moderate and commonsense appointees to the federal judiciary instead of conservative extremists. 

Voting is a civic responsibility that is necessary even in elections that may seem boring, mundane, or pointless.  Democrats didn’t fulfill their duties by failing to turn out to vote in 2014. Votes are not only critical for delivering change, but also for sustaining and protecting established rights. Upholding such rights requires voting in presidential, midterm, state, and local elections. As made clear by the 2014 elections, while the issues facing voters may not have been perceived as exciting as the prospect of electing a new president, diminished voter participation can result in devastating repercussions for years to come. The lesson for all American citizens is that every election counts.