But appointments can work if the system is respected by all. Elections just mean pure unadulterated politics.
My country (Australia) our Supreme Court is called the High Court. The national judicial body shortlists a selection of suitably qualified and respected candidates when there is a vacancy. The candidates owe no political affiliation to any party. The government selects a candidate, usually the recommended judge. There is rarely any controversy in the selection as the politicians, the judges, and the people respect the system.
Australia sometimes gets an upset challenge to a government decision, but everyone tends to blame a government for overreach rather than corruption on the part of the High Court.
This is all appointment with no elections involved. In the US you have elections for positions that we never have, and you introduce politics and dirty money where it's not needed. If the system is fucked no amount of empty democracy is going to save it. We even have a appointed commission to draw independent electoral boundaries in this country. Gerrymandering isn't a thing anymore, anywhere in the country. Politicians and parties get to make a submission on what the boundaries might look like, but anything dodgy gets thrown out. The people have confidence in the commission and no controversy.
I think that the recent case put to them that Trump has the power to sack formally independent institutional heads may be an answer. It certainly put Federal judges on notice. Not addressed directly, but once Trump sacks a Federal judge under that rulling the legal consequences for SCOTUS may be startling. He, or the next president may dump any or all of the Supremes that they don't like?
Caveat: not a lawyer, or even close to being one. Just a long-time interested observer.
Know what's worse than censorship? Having a single person in charge of social culture. You can turn him off and he invades any topic with unavoidable invasion. Why, because he can force influence because wealth. I'll take a slice of cutting him off even in the name of censorship.
Only if you want to do it correctly..