How Trump Can Use the Supreme Court to Get Conservatives in Line
The blowback to Donald Trump’s immigration executive order may have come more fiercely than the president expected, but he was planning for such a moment months ago on the campaign trail, and the gaming veteran knew he had the right ace up his sleeve.
“Even if people don’t like me, they have to vote for me. They have no choice,” Trump said, for example, on August 2 in Virginia. “Even if you can’t stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, you’re going to vote for me. You know why? Justices of the Supreme Court.”
Trump made many comments like that, from the spring of 2016, when he seemed to suddenly become interested. While there are a range of issues where the Court deals with conservative priorities, Trump and his audiences knew that what this really referred to was the decision asserting abortion rights, which social conservatives have long sought to overturn. Whatever Trump may not have understood about the pro-life movement or conservative jurisprudence, he well understood the bludgeoning power that Supreme Court appointments gave him in keeping the Republican Party in line when he got into a pinch. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made himself an ally in that fight, holding open the seat belonging to deceased Justice Antonin Scalia by blocking Barack Obama’s nominee for the slot.
