Over the years, I’ve decried efforts to redefine words and concepts in order to horseshoe current ideological shifts onto long-settled concepts. These ranged from the meaning of rape to the meaning of sex. It’s not a matter of whether these shifts were good policy, or desirable outcomes per se. They may well be, or not. That’s a separate debate. What mattered was that these were not what these words or concepts meant when they were used in the Constitution or laws. This was not our law, whether you liked it or not.

When Trump signed his Day One Executive Order redefining birthright citizenship, it received near-universal ridicule. Outside of a handful of radicals, it was a laughable effort to change what was unquestionably settled law as to the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. To add insult to injury, Trump tried to change it by presidential fiat, the absolute dopiest mechanism for trying to ram a spurious reinvention of the meaning of birthright citizenship down the throats of America. It was considered a joke, as was he for, inter alia, signing it.

Yet, here we are, with the Supreme Court deciding Trump v. Barbara, holding that the birthright citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment means what it meant at its inception and has been held to mean continuously since, in a 5-4 (Kavanaugh’s gets no credit for a partial concurrence) decision. The majority gets no credit for holding the obvious. It should have been a one-paragraph holding that treated the issue with the legitimacy it deserved. None.

What stands out isn’t that the Supreme Court upheld the obvious, but that four justices did what campus rape activists tried to do, what transgender activists tried to do, what earlier justices did when relying upon emanations and penumbras where words failed them. The four justices, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, lent credit to a reimagination of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution for which there was utterly no legal basis. The contention, that “subject to the jurisdiction of” meant anything other than what it said, and what it had consistently been held to say,

The Citizenship Clause uses jurisdiction in its ordinary sense—referring to the power of the United States to govern those within its territory.

If you’re here, you’re subject to the jurisdiction of the United States. That’s what enables the United States to prosecute you, even deport you, because it has jurisdiction over you. But that clarity and consistency wasn’t good enough for the radical four with an agenda to redefine jurisdiction to serve a desired end. Alito would redefine jurisdiction to mean “confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.” No matter how hard you look, you won’t find those words in the Constitution.

Thomas sought to reimagine the  words to mean permanent lawful domicile, also words that appear nowhere in the Constitution, as well as words that would have undermined even the most basic application of the Fourteenth Amendment at its passage. Gorsuch agreed that the children of “illegals” were covered, but not birth tourists, who had no intention of remaining in the United States. Kavanaugh had little to contribute.

Perhaps you share the view that birthright citizenship is an evil suicide pact that will destroy the nation. This is America and you’re entitled to be as wrong as you want to be, even if it’s completely batshit crazy. And should you believe that your hatred of people from other countries, of other colors and religions and theories of governance, is shared by enough people, knock yourself out trying to amend the Constitution to say what you wish it said.

But the mechanism to do this is clearly established. Amend the Constitution. Not an Executive Order by a stable genius. Not by spuriously arguments seeking a radical reimagination of the meaning of as settled a clause as conceivable. Not by lending credence to the outlier arguments of the unduly passionate that would undermine the meaning and stability of law.

Trump v. Barbara should have been a 9-0 decision comprised of one paragraph saying Trump’s Executive Order was complete and total horseshit unworthy of further discussion. That it wasn’t is a disgrace to America and to the Supreme Court. That four justices took it seriously speaks to the peril the nation faces from radicals within.