Conservatives who found themselves lost at sea in a cycle dominated by grassroots populism and the tenacious popularity of the billionaire candidate riding its wave fretted whether they would find themselves locked out, regardless of which candidate won the election. Republican leaders and the Trump campaign insisted that conservatives had only one chance left to save the Supreme Court from a progressive takeover, and eventually conservatives cast their bets on Trump.

This week, that bet paid off – and perhaps more robustly than conservatives might have hoped. Trump had long pledged to name his first Supreme Court pick from a list of 21 names, consisting of well-regarded judicial conservatives that had been recommended from sources like the Heritage Foundation and activists with whom the campaign consulted. Still, having been burned in the past on nominees from better-established politicians – such as George H. W. Bush’s appointment of David Souter or George W. Bush’s initial selection of Harriet Miers – many conservatives had low expectations that Trump would stick to his list once the political realities of Washington DC emerged.