Many have argued that President Trump’s biggest success has been Justice Neil Gorsuch’s ascension to the Supreme Court. While it was a major victory, Mr. Trump’s troubling nominations to the lower courts may be his most lasting legacy.

Every president selects judges whose legal, social and political views generally reflect his own. Conservatives complained about President Barack Obama’s choices, as did liberals about President George W. Bush’s, but most of them were accepted across the aisle as credible and qualified. Some of President Trump’s nominees, however, are so far outside the mainstream that even conservative Republicans like Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas have expressed dismay.

There are 145 vacancies in the federal judiciary, with 18 of those on the Courts of Appeals, and more will surely arise. The Republican-controlled Senate has swiftly confirmed 12 nominees so far. And thanks to life tenure, most of them will serve for decades.

Consider some of the least qualified and most bizarre of his selections.

Leonard Steven Grasz, a nominee for the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in St. Louis, received a rare “not qualified” rating from the American Bar Association because his “temperament issues, particularly bias and lack of open-mindedness, were problematic.” He serves on the board of an organization that has supported the closing of clinics offering women reproductive care, has condemned Supreme Court decisions that protect women’s rights, and has asserted that abortions put women’s lives at risk.