here. As explained in the OP, this is not the 70s, 80s or 90s, so pulling out long-retired justices like Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter literally gets you nowhere. No more than saying the original strict constructionist, Hugo Black, was appointed by FDR and that somehow proves Dems nominate conservatives. You're just grasping at straws about a subject you very clearly don't know much about. For starters -- you purport to talk about voting blocs, but you know that 8 out of 10 SCOTUS cases are somewhere between 9-0 and 7-2, no? Most aren't very controversial at all and there hasn't been a real controversial "liberal" decision aside from maybe the case about gay marriage (if you consider that controversial) in decades. So honestly, WTF are you talking about?

Again, Conservatives have made the SCOTUS into a battlefield for the last half century and actively sought to stack the court with conservatives. No one who knows anything would dispute that. It's been the front line of the culture war, and the reason is that they know their electoral advantages are waning and also saw what liberals did with the court in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. They want to do the same.

Initially, there weren't many conservative legal scholars and judges to choose from, because, quite frankly, most intelligent attorneys and judges have always been somewhat liberal. There was no Federalist Society until 1982 and the notion of "originalism" is a farce that did not even exist until around that same time. So yes, Republicans missed a few times by nominating conservatives like O'Connor who ended up being thoughtful judges instead of raw ideologues. I know, the horror! But they have learned.

All of their appointees since David Souter (who was promoted by Sinunu and others from GOP Senate leadership as a reliable conservative) have been hard right, litmus-tested, hand-picked Federalist Society guys. Alito, Roberts, Gorsuch, and now Kavanaugh. There is no disputing that. At all.

The liberals you mention have voted together on mainstream opinions most thoughtful judges would join. Not declaring the ACA unconstitutional -- a real shocker there. Even Roberts knew joining that opinion would make a mockery of his own court so he chose instead to surgically undermine the ACA instead of blowing it up and handing the Dems a major political victory. Roberts, being smarter than the rest of his colleagues, knew killing the Medicaid expansion would pave the way for the law to self-destruct and he could both secure a policy win AND save the credibility of his court. What else? Not reversing 200 years of precedent on the 2A? Voting along with Kennedy to protect same-sex marriage supported by 70-80% of americans? Or more?

Again, you can say they are "liberals" but what they really represent is mainstream thought. Their counterparts on the right, however, are radical reactionaries of a breed that did not even exist in the world of legal scholars until 30 years ago. That's what you keep missing.
[Post edited by WahooRQ at 07/12/2018 11:33AM]