When the US supreme court this week radically expanded the second amendment and declared most any restrictions on guns to be presumptively unconstitutional, then overturned five decades of reproductive rights and created a likely desert for abortion access all the way from Idaho to Florida, America’s grim new reality became painfully clear.

An extreme conservative majority holds absolute control over the court. They will likely hold this power for multiple generations. They intend to use it to impose a far-right vision that most Americans oppose, twisting the rule of law into whatever they say it is, depending on the ideological outcome they hope to achieve.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The US constitution offers no guidance on the number of supreme court justices. While it has stood at nine for some time, it has not always, and need not for ever. If Republicans have hijacked the court to force a minoritarian agenda on the nation, the court must be expanded and reformed to counter a rightwing power play that threatens to remake American democracy and life itself.