Not sure I agree with you on Gorsuch and Kavanaugh except to the extent that now we have to worry about both of them like we had to do with O’Connor and Kennedy, but the Roberts and Burger similarities become more obvious by the day. Not that conservative, not a natural leader, and weak as hell. It’s a shame Rehnquist didn’t have a more favorable Court during his years as we might have seen a legitimately good Court for the first time since before the Warren revolution.
I foolishly supported Roberts at the time of his appointment too, but I LEARNED from my mistake and I predicted the Roberts court was ending up much more like Burger than Rehnquist in 2017, long before such a view was "popular" on FR. FReepers were instead having orgasms over any and every judge Trump appointing and hailing it as a great triumph for conservatives despite there being zero evidence these judges would vote the way they wanted.
Bashing Bush for Roberts turning traitor but hailing Trump for picking Gorsuch was stupid and hypocritical of FR. We have to remember the context: the selection was to replace SCALIA and the appointment was being confirmed by a REPUBLICAN controlled Senate, POST "nuclear" option preventing filibusters... there was ZERO excuse for naming a stealth judge. Trump could have named Rush Limbaugh and EVERY RAT Senator screamed about it until they turned blue, and he'd STILL have the votes to confirm such a judge.
Even taking aside the context, Roberts was "more conservative" on paper than Gorsuch was. For example, Roberts had clerked for Rehnquist and his wife was a card-carrying member of a pro-life organization.
The real problem though, is having Roberts as CJ instead of associate justice. Combined with some more "wobbly" conservatives now joining him on the court, the net result is that we now have Warren Burger Court 2.0.