[Ilya Somin] Donald Trump’s expanded Supreme Court list changes nothing

Utah Senator Mike Lee – one of the people on Trump’s expanded list of possible Supreme Court nominees.

On Friday, Donald Trump issued an expanded list of potential Supreme Court nominees, adding ten more names to the list of eleven options he put out back in May. Whether you like the names on the expanded list or not, it does not change any of the reasons why Trump is a menace to the Constitution. It also does nothing to change the reality that Trump’s longterm agenda is deeply inimical to originalism, limited government, and efforts to ensure that the federal judiciary will protect those values.

The most prominent name on the new list is Utah Senator Mike Lee, ironically also a leading #NeverTrump conservative. The others are all right of center state judges or lower court federal judges. Like the original list, the new one is probably intended to mollify conservatives and others who hope to see originalist judges appointed to the Supreme Court. Senator Ted Cruz has cited the expanded list as one of his principal reasons for belatedly endorsing Trump.

Regardless of what Cruz might say, the list changes nothing. List member Mike Lee is closer to the mark, issuing a statement saying that “[t]his new list does not change Sen. Lee’s mind about Trump in any way whatsoever.” It should not change anyone else’s mind either.

Donald Trump himself has repeatedly indicated that the Supreme Court list is merely a “guide” and not binding. Moreover, Trump has a long history of lying about a wide range of issues, and there is no reason to think he will be more trustworthy in this case.

But the problem goes far beyond Trump’s dishonesty. It is also far worse than mere ignorance about constitutional issues. Though Trump is indeed ignorant about the Constitution, ignorance does not imply indifference. To the contrary, he has a wide-ranging repressive agenda that would undermine the Constitution at many points. And much of that agenda is an outgrowth of views he has consistently held since long before the 2016 campaign. Unlike the Supreme Court list, it is probably not just a campaign ploy.

For many years, Trump has sought to undermine freedom of speech (in order to shut down his critics) and constitutional property rights (in order to empower government to seize property for transfer to influential developers, including himself). He also wants to gut constitutional constraints on executive power, in numerous areas – going even farther in this respect than Bush and Obama. Much of this is a result of his deep authoritarian streak, exemplified by his lonstanding admiration for brutal tactics of foreign strongmen like Vladimir Putin and the Chinese communists who perpetrated the Tiananmen Square massacre.

The list of unconstitutional policies promoted by Trump increases almost daily. Just in the last two weeks, he has advocated gutting the Sixth Amendment rights of terrorism suspects (including even US citizens with no known connections to foreign terrorist groups) and