You know, it’s interesting, I’m looking back on GOP presidents track record in appointing solid constitutional conservatives to SCOTUS over the last 100 years, and the results overall are dismal.
I remember Fieldmarshaldj was singing Warren G. Harding’s praises a while back, saying historians rate him as a “failure” but he was actually an excellent conservative President. In any case, his SCOTUS nominees certainly were. He got to appoint four of them during his brief time in the White House, and by all accounts, ALL FOUR turned out to be good reliable conservatives (one of the four was even a conservative RAT judge so Harding could claim it was a gesture of “bipartisanship”). No GOP president since then (and likely, no GOP president before him either) has come close. As an added bonus, Harding tended to AVOID naming career federal judges to SCOTUS, instead going with ex-President Taft and sharp legal minds from the private sector.
Coolidge and Ford’s nominees were ostensibly “worse” than Trump’s, (Coolidge’s judge turned out to be a New Deal fanboy who impressed FDR so much with his treason that FDR elevated him to CJ, and Ford’s guy John Paul Stevens ended up moving so far left he’d make Darth Bader Ginsburg blush), but each of those GOP presidents got only ONE shot at naming a SCOTUS judge, so their track record certainly could have been vastly better if they had 2-3 more shots at it like other GOP presidents.
I can excuse Reagan and Nixon’s failures more because they at least TRIED to name conservative “fire-breathers” to SCOTUS at first, only to see the Senate torpedo such a nominee, and ended up settling with a milquetoast alternative (Reagan’s nominees Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg were rejected so we ended up with Anthony Kennedy, Nixon’s nominees Clement Haynsworth and G. Harold Carswell were outspoken conservatives from the deep south that the RATS promptly destroyed, so we ended up with the vile Harry Blackmun instead). But Trump never attempted “fire-breathers”, in the first place, he went with bland deep state establishment picks like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh from the start because they were “confirmable” (and that didn’t stop the RATS from trying to destroy Kav anyway).
As I noted early, Trump’s record of “success” on SCOTUS is about as “good” as Eisenhower, with the interesting different than Trump’s self-declared goal was to name “Scalia-like originalists”, whereas Ike’s self-declared goal was to name “common-sense centrists” like himself that would be above petty partisan ideologies. Here is my scorecard for GOP presidents SCOTUS picks over the last 100 years. I doubt anyone will disagree with my ratings at this point, but feel free to do so:
Harding: 4-0
Coolidge: 0
Hoover: 1-2
Ike: 1-4
Nixon 1-3, maybe 2-2 if I’m being generous
Ford: 0
Reagan: 2-2
GHWB: 1-1
GWB: 1-1
Trump: 0-3, perhaps 1-2 if Barrett OTHEWISE ends up being a reliable solid conservative.
It’s interesting that among Reagan scholars, there is considerable question as to how “conservative” Bork was. Look, for example, at Steven Hayward’s book.
And just for the heck of it, here is my scorecard for RAT presidents getting the ideal kind of justice THEY wanted (usually liberal activists who “find” imaginary new “rights” in the Constitution that never existed before).
Contrary to popular belief, its not all RAT presidents getting perfect commie RAT judges and GOP presidents all getting lemons, though their “success” rate overall has been FAR better than GOP presidents, especially with recent RAT presidents.
Wilson and JFK each “accidentally” appointed 1 conservative. The other RAT presidents never did, though it appears both FDR and Truman ended up with numerous center-left “moderate” RATS and some unpredictable swing justices instead of the hardcore communists they wanted, so I adjusted the scorecard accordingly. (in FDR’s case his less-than-ideal justices didn’t matter because he still got to appoint FIVE yes-man anyway, plus a marxist CJ).
LBJ had a perfect 2-0 score, if he had played his cards right, he would have potentially ended up with a perfect 4-0 score. Clinton and Obama both got their ideal justice 100% of the time as well:
Wilson: 2-1
FDR: 5-3-1 (James F. Byrnes wasn’t on SCOTUS long enough to make an impact)
Truman: 1-3
JFK: 1-1
LBJ: 2-0 (although Fortas elevation to CJ was later rejected, and Homer Thornberry’s nomination was rendered moot)
Carter: N/A
Clinton: 2-0
Obama: 2-0