Inflation in the US is at forty-year highs, while interest rates on ten-year Treasury notes just hit 3 percent—signaling trouble for home buyers. Truck drivers pay more than $1,000 to fill their rigs with $5 per gallon diesel to deliver your increasingly expensive groceries and Amazon packages. Crime and homelessness skyrocket in large cities, exacerbated by virulent opioids like fentanyl and krokodil. And America's proxy war with Russia in Ukraine gives rise to the most serious threats of nuclear strikes against the West since the 1960s.

Yet so-called social issues, from abortion to critical race theory to teaching gender identity in elementary schools, dominate our politics and media. Virtually every voter has a strong opinion on these issues, and pays far more attention to them than, say, the M2 money supply or the next Fed Open Market Committee meeting—though the latter could have a far greater impact on that voter's life and finances.

Why is this so? 

The short answer is the Supreme Court.

Yesterday brought news that a leaked draft opinion allegedly from Supreme Court associate justice Samuel Alito portends the overturning of Roe v. Wade. This brought forth paroxysms of anger and fear across the media spectrum, especially on social platforms like Twitter. Protestors quickly arrived at the newly fenced-off court building, and the commentariat began enumerating the predictable dire threats for the future of women posed by a Trumpian right-wing court.