The Coming Conservative Supreme Court

The left lives by abusing power and taking the rules of political processes and twisting those rules for naked advantage. So for many decades, brazen gerrymandering of state legislative districts and congressional districts assured Democrats for almost a half-century of unbroken control of the House of Representatives, with all the mischief that brings. Now the left whines about how "undemocratic" gerrymandering is, but no one in his right mind believes that a misty-eyed love of democracy motivates this whining. Instead, Democrats see decades of minority status in that same House of Representatives because of Republican gerrymandering – a vice Republicans repeatedly called to end during their long years out of power in state legislatures and in the House of Representatives, which was met by howls of laughter from Democrats.

Conservatives have learned the same lesson regarding the federal bench, especially the Supreme Court. These conservatives for decades sought the best jurists for the Supreme Court while leftists sought the most reliable ideological hacks. Today, the four leftist jurists vote virtually in lockstep on all important constitutional cases. President Trump, with his list of acceptable Supreme Court nominees, has ensured that ideological trustworthiness and not some notional brilliance in judicial thinking will guide his nominees. He will be picking nominees for at least the next three and a half years – and if Hillary seeks the Democrat nomination, then likely the next seven and a half years – and he will have a Republican Senate almost certainly through the 2022 midterm elections because of the state configuration of Senate elections in the next two general elections. Justice Kennedy is 80, Justice Breyer is 78, and Justice Ginsburg is 84. The ideological division of the Supreme Court today is three conservatives (Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito) and four leftists (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotamayor), with two "moderates" (Roberts and Kennedy). If Justice Kennedy retires soon, then Chief Justice Roberts will become the "swing" vote, and the Supreme Court will move noticeably to the conservative side. Justice Ginsburg is a sick woman. She may not retire from the Supreme Court, but it is more than likely that if she does not, then she will die during a second Trump administration. She would be 89 before the 2022 midterm, the only chance Democrats will have of recapturing the Senate in a two-term Trump presidency. That would leave the Supreme Court with a 5-1-3 ideological split, with Chief Justice Roberts likely joining in concurring opinions with the conservative majority in order to preserve the appearance of unity on the court. Justice Breyer would be 84 during the period of a second Trump administration, in which Republican Senate control is almost certain. If Republicans hold on to the Senate in 2022, he will be 86 before there is the chance of a Democrat president replacing him. He might not live that long. Assuming that Justice Thomas, who is 68, and Justice Alito, who is 67, retire while Trump is in office and Republicans control the Senate, as both ought to do, conservatives will dominate the Supreme Court for an entire generation, reversing such monstrosities as constitutionally protected abortion on demand, discrimination against men and Caucasians, and trampling of the Tenth Amendment. In the past, the left was able to control the court by persuading Republican presidents to nominate pseudo-conservative fakes like Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, both appointed by Reagan; John Paul Stevens, appointed by Ford; and David Souter, appointed by George H. Bush. President Trump has promised that that will not happen again, and he has certainly kept his word on that promise so far. If he stays true, and it looks as though he will, that last bastion of leftist power, the Supreme Court, will become instead a source of conservative revolution – and leftists will find themselves whining about an ideologically driven Supreme Court then, just as they are whining about gerrymandering today.