A new YouGov/Economist survey bring worrying signs for archconservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas as their favorability ratings find them 7 percent and 10 percent underwater, respectively, while concerns over their personal conduct and connections to shady MAGA billionaires grow. The pollsters found just 26 percent of respondents view Alito favorably to 33 percent unfavorably, the remaining 41 percent saying they don’t know enough to form an opinion, while Thomas is at 31 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable, and 28 percent don’t know.

And when we say these numbers are “worrying signs” we’re trying to posit a theoretical scenario in which the two of them actually care what regular Americans think about them and would rightly make an attempt to become more open about the process in which they make their decisions that have far-reaching consequences on people’s lives as well as make a renewed commitment to being held to the highest standards of integrity. Like it’s absolutely possible that they could want to polish their respective public images, so accordingly we’re going to frame our coverage of this poll as such.

Not is only is that totally within the realm of potential outcomes here, it’s also an important tenet of journalistic ethics to operate on the assumption that the most powerful jurists in our nation would be steadfast in their adherence to democratic principles and thus responsive to public opinion. Any less would be a serious breach of the decorum expected of we in the Fourth Estate.