If Barrett roughly equals Scalia
Kav clearly better than Kennedy
Gorsuch MUCHHHHHHH better than Ginsberg
Court=improved
It was a similar issue when FReepers used to have orgasms over Zig Zag Zell Miller's tenure in the US Senate. Had Zig Zag been appointed to replace a Chuck Schumer type RAT, their orgasms and gloating would have been justified, as THAT would have been a VAST improvement.
But Zig Zag wasn't filling Schumner's seat. He filled the seat of Paul Coverdell, who had an 100% ACU rating and been one of the BEST conservatives in the entire U.S. Senate. That meant that Zig Zag, regardless of how "conservative" he was by RAT standards, moved the seat (and susequently, the entire U.S. Senate) to the LEFT. Had Coverdell not dropped dead, the voting record would have been much MORE conservative than what we got out of Zig Zag.
Let's look at the net overall gain/loss in each seat:
- Gorsuch replaced Scalia. Now we have a Sandra Day O'Connor type judge in place of the most conservative justices of all time. This has a net effect of moving that seat, and the court itself, drastically to the LEFT overall.
- Kav replaced Kennedy. I held my nose and endorsed Kav, thinking he might be a slight improvement over Kennedy, but he certainly was nowhere near on the level of Scalia (interestingly enough, a lot of Trump fans came to the same conclusion about him). My one hope was the insane RAT crusade to demonize 24/7 would piss off Kav so much that he WOULD indeed vote FAR more conservative than Kennedy, just to spite the RATS. Unfortunately, that turned out NOT to be the case. Kav has been pretty Kennedy-like (votes the "right" way about 70-80% of the time but turns traitor now and then and can be easily swayed). Might be a milimeter to the right of Kennedy, though overall I'd say its a wash with stuff like this: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/10/supreme-court-planned-parenthood-defunding-case-845056
- Barrett replaces Darth Bader. Again, BEST case scenario would be she IS confirmed and IS a 100% across-the-board conservative. I'll go with the assumption both "best case" scenarios do in fact happen. VAST improvement over Ginsburg. Moves that seat, and the court overall, drastically to the RIGHT.
So that's ONE seat with a CLEAR improvement during the Trump presidency, ASSUMING BEST CASE-SCENARIO. In the post Rehnquist era, the REMAINING seats are:
Roberts replaces Rehnquist. Solidly conservative seat moves LEFT.
Alito replaces O'Connor. Moderately conservative seat moves solidly conservative.
Sotomayor replaces Souter. Commie seat remains commie. Kagan replaces Stevens. Commie seat remains commie. Gorsuch replaces Scalia. Solid conservative seat moves LEFT.
Kavanaugh replaces Kennedy. Moderately conservative seat remains moderately conservative.
That's 1 out of 5 times the court became more conservative, post-Rehnquist. 2 times it became more liberal, 3 times it remained the same.
Adding Barrett to the mix in the "best case scenario" would make it 2 times it became more conservative, which would be a wash overall.
If that's "cementing a conservative majority for decades to come", then President Eisenhower had about the same level of "accomplishment" with the half dozen or so SCOTUS judges he named. 1 or 2 them actually turned out to be good conservatives. I guess we can ignore the fact the rest of that era was filled with rabid marxist activists on the court.
And I think looking at stuff like this, I would clearly dispute the “Kav much better than Kennedy” premise. At best, I would say he might be a milimeter to Kennedy’s right. Both turned out to be “disappointments for conservatives” and “emerged as unlikely liberal hopes for a swing vote”:
https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-brett-kavanaugh-supreme-court-liberal-justices-1424286
https://www.denverpost.com/2019/05/14/tuesday-may-14-letters/
https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/04/empirical-scotus-is-kavanaugh-as-conservative-as-expected/
And I give Reagan less flask for his guy because Kennedy was Reagan’s THIRD choice for that seat.