“the core understanding of judicial restraint is that, generally speaking, we should presume that the democratic processes & laws that are produced by the House & the Senate & state legislatures, etc., that the administrative process that goes with it, is afforded some deference as long as core constitutional values are observed.”
If you think this Barack Obama quote describes judicial restraint, then judicial activism would be showing little or no deference to legislation and executive orders--and a key indicator would be quantity of overturns.
On the other hand, perhaps you think "judicial restraint" means the judiciary restrains legislatures and the executive by batting down legislation and executive orders that the judges believe diverge from the Constitution--or at least their idea of it. This has been done by both liberal and conservative courts. And it would be synonymous with "judicial activism."
"Judicial activism" has been put forth as a Bad Thing. But is it? Seems like a court that overturns lots of laws over the years is an activist court, on average. Most of what I've heard contradicting that simple measure seems like verbal gymnastics by those who want an activist court--as long as it's to their ideological advantage. And then they try to come up with a definition of "activist" that exempts judgments overturning laws by the definer's party.
And that's dishonest--and tribal, since it's really saying "whatever my tribe does is good--whatever yours does is bad, even when it does exactly the same thing as my tribe is doing.
That's the essence of tribalism.
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