More of a Bemused Grunt

I'm concerned that replying to some things does more of a disservice to public discourse than anything else. Still, I'll bite to this extent: I have heard, and voiced, many reasons why a Supreme Court Justice, or any other judge or official, might want to step down from office. Age is one, has been particularly relevant for the last three presidential terms including this one and for some time on the Supreme Court, and remains an understudied aspect of contemporary American constitutional law and politics. Dishonor is another. A proper sense of self, in which one's job is not one's life, and a sense as an official that everything has its season, is yet another. It's why David Souter is the best Justice in modern Supreme Court history and why, even absent term limits, a great judge might decide that the thing to do is to serve no more than, say, 20 years or one's 65th or 70th birthday and then step down regardless of the president then serving. (This, I would suggest, is not a flashy form of "judicial greatness"; it is merely an accurate use of the phrase.)

Other sound or plausible reasons are legion. But until now, I had never heard it suggested that "not liking the president," or possibly--and it does seem in context to be the most likely meaning--just "not liking President Trump specifically"--is a reason to leave judicial office. Even in its more general form, I do not think it is likely to join the standard list of reasons. Since many and possibly most people, in and out of all three branches of the federal government, do not like Donald Trump personally, and others just haven't met him yet, I should think that the more specific, personalized version is just a non-starter.