Lochnerism is basically when the Supreme Court decides to turn the Constitution into a choose-your-own-adventure book using the 14th Amendment’s liberty clause. They say, “We’re here to protect freedom!” But then the existential crisis kicks in: What even is freedom? The Constitution doesn’t spell it out, so the Court just kind of wings it.

Depending on the era, “liberty” could mean abortion rights, gay rights, women’s suffrage, the right to negotiate your soul away in a horrible work contract, or even nixing a woman’s minimum wage because, apparently, too much freedom is bad for business. Activist judges love this game because it lets them project their own vibes onto the law.

Oh, and it all goes back to Lochner v. New York (1905), where the Court decided that baking bread at odd hours was a sacred human right worth overriding labor laws for. So now, every time liberty gets hauled into the courtroom, we’re basically re-litigating whether freedom is about rights…or about bagels.