“but the best justices are Thomas and Alito. Anyone want to argue that?”
To get a Thomas, we had to take a Souter.
To get an Alito, we had to take a Roberts.
To get a Scalia, we had to take an O’Connor AND a Tony Kennedy.
In other words, for every hero, we had to take one or two zeros.
I get RDS’ point that Gorsuch/Kav/Barrett don’t rise to superstar level, but by virtue of avoiding the appointment of one or more stealth liberals, Trump absolutely blows away the Bushes, Reagan, Nixon and Eisenhower on this issue.
Good point. Though I don’t consider Roberts a total disaster. Just not as good as he could’ve been.
I suspect that one or more of Trump’s pick will “grow” making the situation more complex, (Kennedy might have voted to overturn had Thomas, Scalia, and two other votes to overturn been there when he had only been on the court a year or two).