In December the Supreme Court in the American state of Colorado held that former President Donald Trump was constitutionally ineligible to run for election again due to the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding office. Michigan’s Supreme Court held the exact opposite: Trump must be placed on the ballot.

It is now up to the US Supreme Court to resolve the conflict. But for a growing number of observers, conservatives and liberals alike, the fact that courts are playing such a central role is something to be lamented. In their view, the answer to a threat to democracy is not judicial intervention, but rather more democracy.