In Wisconsin, where I live, certain judicial offices are elected. Judicial elections are as nakedly partisan as you might fear, and it fosters no confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. Based on my understanding (as a generally conservative libertarian), many decisions are predicated on conservative political promises and ideology, rather than any sound legal reasoning.

But at least you know judges political affiliation, officially. The worst thing is when judges try to hide it, pretending to be impartial, objective, basically demigods free of typical human flaws.

>In fact, as a Canadian, I find the idea of electing judges to be so thoroughly strange that it almost defies belief. Why the hell would you want your judicial branch to be "democratic", as in directly and immediately beholden to the whims of the mob?

As a Briton I agree. It's also why I'm quite sceptical of the concrete benefits of a directly elected House of Lords and the replacement of the monarchy with a presidential system which are popular ideas in some political circles. I'm no fan ideologically of the trappings of a landed gentry and there's plenty of room for heavy reforms there but having a strictly apolitical head of state and a semi-technocratic oversight body has its advantages. Democracy isn't necessarily measured by the amount of government positions which are directly or indirectly elected - there's more nuances than that.

There's a quiet and small (there are tens of us! Tens, I say!) group of Americans who aren't so sure de facto direct election of the President is a good idea (in fact, it isn't direct, and wasn't intended to be, but in effect sort-of is direct, because the system wasn't set up to defend against what amounts to a variety of attacks on it that broke it almost immediately and gave us what we still have today, which is a worst-of-both-worlds hybrid) or that changing our Senate so that they're directly elected was the right move.

Is having judges be only accountable to politicians and unclear financial interests pulling the strings be that much better?

They are not accountable to politicians though, not on a continuous basis. They are appointed by politicians for a fixed or life term. This is the important difference - elect politicians to well-paid full-time jobs of (among other things) appointing judges and prosecutors, and then let them spend the time doing it right, and then don't have those judges/prosecutors have to continuously be checking in with what the voters or the politicians who appointed them want, in the moment. That last part is key.

But yes, if you have garbage politicians they will at some point start appointing garbage judges, garbage crown attorneys, etc. and the system breaks down. So, like, get better politicians (by which I really mean become better voters).

It shouldn't be democratic, but for a non-democratic institution, the Supreme Court in the U.S. has outsized power at a level not originally intended in the constitution.

Agreed. The judiciary should be the least accountable and most transparent branch of government.