Re GOP appointed judges gone bad:
It’s been remarked that judges often drift progressive, but rarely drift conservative.
I think it’s something about the power of the office, and the egotistic seductiveness of being the interpreter of the law. I don’t know how that tendency can be changed.
There is no reservoir of conservative legal theory to draw on. There are no Originalista. Those called Originalists are really Textualists, such as Scalia.
Today, Originalism is history and philosophy instead of active legal theory.
Modern elastic legal theory is the only thing taught in law schools, and no one who dissents has a hope of becoming a judge.
The only hope is that Congress will more closely regulate the jurisdiction of the federal courts as per Article 3, Section 2.
Term limits. No politician (and I include judges) should have a lifetime appointment.
Can't change human nature, unfortunately. But what we can do is force Congress to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts and just strip them of their authority in certain matters.
As an ancillary benefit, if the scope of the federal judiciary becomes limited, if it becomes the equivalent of shipping a federal employee off to Adak, Alaska, then perhaps will get a better class of judges who really care about law and the Constitution and not the power and the perks.