In his own back-handed way, Chuck Todd at NBC gave President Trump the biggest complement he has ever had from the leftist media.
“The announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy this week helped make one political reality clear — despite his overall unpopularity, President Trump is winning, and the Democrats right now are reeling,” said the man we think of as the Ryan Seacrest of politics on last week’s Meet the Press.
I’m not certain if, when he refers to “overall unpopularity” he was talking about the folks at the table, the leftist media, the swamp inside the Beltway or himself, but Todd has a strange way of measuring things so as to come to a conclusion he has predetermined. Maybe he was talking about the Democrat party.
But the fact is that if Trump were to run today, he might win by Reagan numbers. The reason he is so hated by the left, is that he is actually KEEPING his campaign promises, starting with the one where he said he would appoint Federal Judges in the mold of the late Associate Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Even NPR reported that in his first year in office, Trump “welcomed a new, young and conservative lawyer, Neil Gorsuch, onto the Supreme Court. And he won confirmation of 12 federal appeals court judges — a record”.
Since Federal Judges get a lifetime appointment, many of these people could serve 40 years.
No wonder the Democrat Party has a group in Congress who wants to impeach him.
No wonder the Democrat Party has a new battle cry—that somehow Trump cannot make a judicial nomination during any election year—not just the election year replacing a lame duck President.
No wonder the Democrat Party has a new alternate battle cry—that Trump is looking for a jurist who would lead the Court to somehow overturn Roe v. Wade.
To quote Barack Obama, “elections have consequences”.
One of those consequences is that the winner of a Presidential election—which Donald Trump absolutely is—has the absolute right to nominate a judge to the Supreme Court, subject to confirmation by the Senate. That’s absolute. Not subject to some made up asterisk by some Senator, Congressman or legal “expert” on CNN or the New York Times.
If Trump keeps no other promise he has made—and that train has also already left the station—this is the one which promises to reshape the country.
For one thing, much of the Court has become increasingly concerned with activist District Judges issuing nationwide injunctions which are clearly political in nature—similar to the ones swept aside by the Court, 5-4, upholding the President’s so-called travel ban in US v. Hawaii. Since the Associate Justice who is retiring happened to be on the 5 voting to uphold the 1952 law which gave the President that authority, a moderate judge might change that vote.
Trump needs to hold firm and ignore the Chuckie Schumers and the Nancy Pelosis of the world. He’ll have plenty of backing from just regular people.
Also, his previous vetting of his judicial appointments has been sound and reasonable. That, even from the legal left. The lefties of the legal persuasion may not like the results, but they cannot argue with the process, so far.
But, again, as Barack Obama was fond of saying, “elections have consequences”.
The beauty of the timing of Trump’s election is that he may have as many as four picks on the Supreme Court. And many more at the Appellate and District levels.
That means his work will be felt in this country for many years to come, no matter the next three of four Presidents’ political persuasions.
Thank God.
