A funny thing about essentially unprecedented situations: *somehow* this decision got made, we may or may not ever know how or by who, and in 100 years from this will be cited as precedent---which is is---but also as rock-solid proof of its correctness, which is unclear. https://twitter.com/rossgarber/status/1353767663533772800

Which is just a long way of saying that using precedent is very useful for making things easy, but not great at getting things right, and certainly not for the right reasons.

And that's ok! I mean, somehow this has to be decided, and the whims/views of CJ Roberts seem as reasonable as any other process. But it should make you wary of overstating the soundness of old precedents (while still adhere to the value of them as precedent itself).

(I'd also note that this sort of precedent is different than legal precedent, where you (often) have the corresponding contemporary arguments so you can understand the decisions. Political precedent is often more murky).