Interestingly the supreme Court has always been super political, dating back to the early 1800s when they were just some dudes riding horses around the country to make appeals decisions and then meeting in some random building in New York.

Check out the way, especially early on, Congress would pack the courts and cut seats when they didn't politically align with presidents. They did this because the court was making partisan political decisions and they didn't want the president to be able to dictate who was making those political decisions.

Or in the early 1810s when the court mysteriously started supporting business interests in pretty blatant ways.

The way they differ today is that they have more sway (sometimes people would just ignore rulings) and there's no legislation being done by Congress to actually shape law, so the supreme Court is doing all the legislating for them.

Look up the Throughline podcast from NPR if you're a podcast person, they have done a couple very potable episodes on the supreme court. One on how they came to be this way, and the other on the shadow docket (which is integral to how they came to be this way).