Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the highest court in the land three years ago this week. (Thanks for that, Joe Manchin!). Oct. 6, 2018 stands as an inflection point in the court’s move toward illegitimacy.

To be sure, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s blockade of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, was questionable. But the subsequent nomination of Neil Gorsuch by the former guy proceeded as normal, and Gorsuch hid his rabid extremism well throughout. Kavanaugh, though, couldn’t hide his essential being. The privileged white frat boy bully was on full display, and the nation woke up to the fact that even on the Supreme Court, our country’s most revered government institution is open to that guy—the same guy who got the promotion over you because of his daddy and his connections.

Since Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s death and the unleashing of the rabidly far-right majority with her successor, Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court’s last shreds of legitimacy are falling away. That’s made abundantly clear by the latest survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Its findings—that more than one-third of Americans would consider abolishing the court if it continues to rule counter to majority opinion—demonstrate that the last hope for a court the people see as legitimate lies in its reform.

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The survey found that 34% of respondents said “it might be better to do away with the court altogether” if it “started making a lot of rulings that most Americans disagreed with.” In 2007, Annenberg asked that question and fewer than 20% of respondents agreed the court could be abolished, while over 80% disagreed. Now 65% disagree with the idea of abolishing the court, dropping precipitously from about 78% in 2019.

Most Americans, for example, support abortion rights; 59% in a recent Pew poll say it “should be legal in all or most cases.” Yet the Supreme Court, in a secretive and opaque shadow docket ruling, allowed almost all abortion to end in Texas. It will hear a case this fall that could end that constitutional right to an abortion for millions of Americans.

The survey also found that 38% of Americans believe that “Congress should pass legislation saying the Supreme Court can no longer rule on that issue or topic” when the Congress disagrees with the court’s decisions, up about 10 points from the 2019 survey. Say, on voting rights, which the Roberts court has effectively eviscerated.

“Respect for judicial independence appears to be eroding,” Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC), said of the findings. “The willingness of more than 1 in 3 Americans to entertain the idea of abolishing the court or stripping jurisdiction from it is alarming.” The findings also aren’t outliers, the APPC points out. “Gallup reported in September that the Supreme Court’s approval rating plunged to 40%, a new low, from 49% in July. A Marquette Law School Poll in September found the court’s approval rating falling to 49% from 60% in July.”

Whether this erosion in trust in the court is coming from the rabid right that trusts no one but Trump, or the rest of us who have watched the court become increasingly beholden to far-right corporate interests isn’t clear from the survey. What is clear is that if more than one-third of the population thinks doing away with the court is a solid idea, then the president and Congress taking on court reform by expanding it is not a particularly radical proposition.

What Elie Mystal says: “Court expansion is the preferred constitutional solution to a Court that oversteps its mandate or thumbs its nose at the will of the people.” Court expansion dilutes the power of the new Federalist Society majority, appointed not for their judicial experience or integrity, but for their willingness to participate in advancing a fascist vision for the U.S.

What Mystal also says: “As the Court prepares to merrily set everything on fire this term, Democrats are looking at the constitutional fire extinguisher and thinking, It says we can only break the glass in case of an emergency, and we’re not sure burning our constituents’ rights at the stake qualifies.” They’ve got to get over that, just like they have to get over thinking getting rid of the filibuster is a radical idea (which, by the way, they’ll have to do to expand the court and save everything, anyway). With more than one-third of the country thinking the court is worthy of dissolution, using this option to save the institution (and the country!) is a no-brainer.