I don't see this particular decision as being an Obamacare-level betrayal either. Take by itself, its actually a pretty minor legal decision.
Rather, I see it in the first in a long line of decisions where Gorsuch will turn out to be a Sandra Day O'Connor type "swing vote" on the court that will give the Dem bloc on a court a 5-4 victory on social issues.
If you judged on O'Connor solely by her first year or two on the court, you'd conclude that Reagan made a great conservative pick. She voted with Rehnquist 90% of the time her first year on the court, more than any other judge on the court at that time. None of those decisions were particularly important legal matters, but she certainly proved to be more ideologically Republican than Democrat.
After a few years, she began voting with the Dems on a handful of minor cases, being the deciding vote on a number of 5-4 decisions. Then the dam broke in the late 80s/early 90s when some MAJOR precedents had to be decided, and O'Connor remained the 5th vote to deliver a leftist victory on numerous "landmark" decisions on social issues, though she remained overall "conservative" on her track record on the court.
I don't recall any 5-4 decisions where Scalia was the LONE GOP appointee to join the Ruth Bader Ginsburg bloc of the court. Hpwever, I do remember numerous times where that was an Anthony Kennedy/Sandra Day O'Connor type move.
For what its worth, the current SCOTUS justice who really IS a "Scalia type nominee" (namely, Justice Alito, who was nicknamed "Scalito" when he was a lower court nominee) stood with the conservative justices and AGAINST Gorsuch and the Democrat judges on this one.
Seems to me this his vote on this, while resulting in an outcome that is unfortunate politically, is legally very defensible from a strict constructionist POV and despite how the others voted may even be correct (Justice AuH is no O’Connor). As a layperson I would not assume burglary fits under “a crime of violence”.
So I’m not taking it as evidence of your terrifying thesis. :o