Simon Cox Blog: Supreme Court Matters: Brett Kavanaugh is a Good Pick for America, and the Reason Many Voted for President Trump

Monday 9 July 2018

Supreme Court Matters: Brett Kavanaugh is a Good Pick for America, and the Reason Many Voted for President Trump

With the dysfunction of Congress and the turnover rate in the White House, the Supreme Court is the defining reality amid American society right now because of the high level of influence and power those on it hold.

I am glad that President Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, I’m glad that he was making that nomination rather than Hillary Clinton.

Of course, once you say such a thing, half the country flies into a rage.

Last night, I tweeted, “I am glad @RealDonaldTrump will be nominating the next Supreme Court Justice, rather than @HillaryClinton. I'll be writing more on this tomorrow, but the implications for life and religious liberty are the reason that many evangelicals supported President Trump.” You can read the replies here, and notice how few people respond to my actual words, compared to those who simply vent their outraage.

But, both of the things I said are true. The first is that I’m glad that a Supreme Court justice has been nominated who will, I hope, move the court away from its recent activism. And, it’s true that many evangelicals voted as they did because of the Supreme Court.

Why people do what they do

I’ve written many times about my concern about President Trump and how evangelicals have responded to him. You can find some of my pieces here, here and here. In the end, however, I know that many will be outraged by my tweet—not because of my nuanced words, but because of their own concerns about Trump.

But, President Trump is not appointing himself to the bench. He is nominating a respected jurist. If that respect is unearned, we will see during the confirmation hearing. But, for many, any conservative would be unacceptable.

However, if the election had gone the other way and Hillary Clinton was president, you would now have a generational majority that would not be sympathetic to concerns for religious liberty or issues related to life or ...