With very few exceptions — very notable exceptions, yes, which are not to be diminished but which skew more recently in our memory — the Supreme Court has, historically, stood more often against progress than for it. We have been fortunate that that has not been the case in many important instances, but it is a matter of simple legal and historical fact that the court has lagged behind the political process in delivering justice rather than lead it.

The Court never ruled against slavery, did not deliver women the right to vote and took nearly a century to even begin to rule against Jim Crow. Even in instances where a single Supreme Court case stands paramount in the vindication of rights, such cases were only decided after years of people pushing our nation to get there, hard, in the social and political sphere. The Court often carries the ball over the goal line, but it’s the people who marched it down the field.

This is not to say that we should not be worried about the Court’s hard shift to the right. There will be considerable damage done to the course of human progress as a result of it in both the short term and long term. It is undeniably the case, however, that what the Court does will not be the final word.

It will not be the final word if people continue to fight, politically and socially, for justice and progress. Not if we push back against this madness by every means necessary, do whatever can be done to advance the cause of humanity and to beat back the cause of revanchism, nihilism and just plain evil.

Be sad today. Then get pissed. Then get to work. People who have faced far harder times than us have dealt with a society far less inclined to listen to their voices and far more inclined to do them violence as a means of silencing them. Yet they were not deterred. They did not wallow in defeatism. They kept fighting. And they won. Do them proud by doing the same.