Elie Mystal at The Nation (email-gated; Apple News+ link), regarding Tuesday’s Supreme Court birthright citizenship ruling:

The ruling is a victory, to the extent that upholding a bedrock principle hard-coded into the Constitution for more than 150 years is what passes for a “win” these days. But the ruling was far closer than it should have been. There were a number of dissents, and when you read those dissents, the ruling looks less like the final word and more like the prologue to what will be a long and ugly attempt to write xenophobia and bigotry back into the Constitution.

Birthright citizenship is a law whose meaning and history is so clear and obvious that opposition to it divulges more about the opposers. See also voting rights and slavery.

This 6–3 ruling comes with strong dissents (including from Brett Kavanaugh, part of the purported majority), which lay out “the road map for how Trump or future bigots might get around the Citizenship Clause.” Mystal dismantles each of the dissenters’ points (from an absurd redefinition of “domiciled” to an incredibly xenophobic reinterpretation of the history of American immigration), but notes that we’re a long way from this being settled law:

From where I sit, birthright citizenship is now poised to replace abortion as the litmus test for future Republican judicial appointments, with Barbara replacing Roe as the case Republicans insist must be overturned.

Logic and the Constitution won this round, but the fight has only just begun.