Hello, Neil. This is Johnathan, a Spectator columnist, writing to you from 2017. I know you can’t hear me back in 1988. Nonetheless, this piece is addressed to 20-year-old you: the proud, articulate, outspoken college conservative who shakes his head at Columbia’s brazen liberalism.

You wrote a piece for Spectator in the spring of 1988 criticizing college progressives for their snobbishness, their elitism, and their fondness for staging public protests. You wrote of their claiming monopoly on righteousness. You implied, correctly, that no ideology is without flaws: that reason must triumph over rhetoric, that brashness and arrogance have no place in meaningful civil discourse.

When I read your words three decades from now, you’ll strike me as a genuine, capable guy who’s clearly headed for success. Indeed, in January 2017, you’ll be nominated to serve as associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. I say to you, Well done, brother—but I want you to know that the circumstances that will bring you there will fundamentally challenge, even refute, everything you are now.

I can’t possibly fill you in on how the world will change over the next 29 years, but here’s a teaser. O.J. Simpson gets away with murder. Gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. Robots, though more advanced and lifelike than ever before, remain hilariously inept at rudimentary tasks. A black man is elected president—twice. Your phone can talk to you and holds up to 5,000 songs (don’t even ask).

If this makes the 21st century sound like some hedonistic, leftist technological dystopia, let me soothe you with a few more details. World peace hasn’t been achieved. Reagan remains quite popular among your generation. Military spending grows larger than ever. The war on drugs remains ongoing. Welfare programs are largely cut back.

And now for the part no one will ever truly understand: Donald Trump is elected president. You may know him as the brash, materialistic Manhattan socialite. You know, the one with the shiny new skyscraper bearing his name.

This man, whose thinking is objectively divorced from reality, assumes the presidency after the most contentious and divisive election in recent history. His own political party—your party—tries in vain to prevent his nomination for the presidential ticket. His campaign incites sexism, racialized violence, xenophobia, and a complete disregard for decorum. He wins despite losing the popular vote by 2 percent—a fact that he blames, falsely, on illegal voting—and having never previously held public office. The U.S. intelligence community concludes that Russia worked to swing the election in his favor, and this enrages him, despite bipartisan agreement on the matter. Once sworn in, his presidency descends into chaos within days as his contempt for rule of law and his personal impulsivity prove the job to be beyond him.

But he nominates you. And though you’ll be highly qualified, with a prolific legal career already under your belt, don’t get too excited: President Trump will come to despise the courts, mainly because they block his executive orders from taking effect. Separation of powers, the system of checks and balances that make the U.S. government function, are an obstacle for him. And you, while still in the nomination process, will call the situation “disheartening.”

This might all seem insane—I certainly think it is. Unfortunately, these are the circumstances in which you will be considered for one of the most powerful positions in the U.S. government. Your nomination to the Supreme Court will put your very moral fiber to the test.

In your 1988 column, you write about the need for decorum in a university community that romanticizes campus protests; in the weeks following President Trump’s inauguration, thousands of protests will occur around the world. You write that students should defer to Columbia’s Rules of University Conduct, implying that doing so displays civility and respect for rule of law; prior to being elected, Donald Trump will brag about committing sexual assault, only to then deny it, dismissing any allegations and publicly disparaging multiple accusers. You take issue with name-calling and misleading labels; throughout his campaign and into his presidency, Trump will relish in his ability to incite public anger through name-calling and derogatory language.

These contradictions are irreconcilable. And though you, 20-year-old Neil Gorsuch, are beyond my reach, I wonder about you. I wonder how you, a young, ambitious, principled guy who is carving a genuine identity for himself at Columbia, would react knowing the conundrum you will face one day. Will you justify your eventual moral sacrifice as necessary to ascend to the Supreme Court? Will you imagine yourself quietly conspiring against this president, waiting to assume the bench so you can turn against him, bringing him in line and upholding your core values? Who are you now, really? And who will you become?

To be fair to you, people change. Nobody is the same at 49—the age at which you’ll be nominated—as he was at 20. You deserve an opportunity to grow, for your thoughts and views to change. You deserve a chance to prove yourself worthy of the task ahead. But I cannot understand how you, someone so insightful, so principled, so driven to stand for what he believes, could ever remain true to yourself while tying your legacy to Donald Trump. And while he parades as a conservative Republican, his impulsivity, proneness to anger, and complete ignorance of government policy imperil even his own party’s future. For all these reasons, I cannot imagine, Neil, how any amount personal growth over the next 29 years could justify your accepting a nomination from this president.

A much better president than Trump once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” In 2017, a time when the future of the United States will ride on the independence of its courts, you, Neil, will endure an extraordinary test of character. You will be forced to decide between the self you aspired to become and the compromise you may be forced to make. I don’t know the right choice—but I know the outcome will change the course of American history.

You’ll probably be sworn in as a new Supreme Court justice sometime before the end of 2017. I wonder, what kind of man will Justice Gorsuch be? Will he sacrifice everything he once fought for and believed in? If he ties his identity to a man without principles, could he ever speak with such moral authority again?

What do you think, Neil? You have until 2017 to figure it out.

Johnathan Fuentes is an undergraduate at the School of General Studies. He went to space camp once, where he learned that dehydrated ice cream tastes about as good as it sounds. My Compass Points South runs alternate Thursdays. Find Johnathan on twitter at @JohnathanAF

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