The Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship reasoning reveals a startlingly myopic view

The so-called birthright citizenship case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday proved an irresistible shiny object to the court’s hubris, gleaming with the chance to address fringe conservative ideology and enhance the power and ego of the high court, all while it used its favorite new love: the emergency shadow docket. To put it plainly, the conservative wing of the court shouldn’t have even entertained the Trump administration’s arguments about birthright citizenship — and those justices have made it clear that they can and should diminish the role of lower courts through their prodigious use of the emergency shadow docket.

Consolidated from three cases in which lower courts stayed implementation of President Donald Trump’s executive order revoking the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of birthright...