Who could forget the stream of stealth nominees—most infamously, David Souter—that contributed to the sense among conservatives that it was hopeless and the feeling that conservative voters were being stabbed in the back by Republican presidents who appointed liberal judges?
It might be too much to call this a fetish or an obsession, but just as the New England Patriots would consider their entire season a failure if they lost the Super Bowl, conservatives tend to view winning the presidency as a means to an end—a stepping stone to changing the courts.
“There is no more unifying issue for the GOP and conservative movement than the fight for the Supreme Court,” said Gary Marx, a senior advisor for the Judicial Crisis Network. “The Supreme Court touches every part of our life and those who care about limited government have unified in the face of the last few decades of judicial activism.”
Republican voters were starting to feel like Sisyphus. With Trump, they can finally see the mountaintop.
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