President Trump has retained support from many Republicans and conservatives thanks to a Faustian bargain: So long as he stacks the judiciary with friendly judges, they’ll look the other way when he pushes trade protectionism, ditches entitlement reform or woos Russian President Vladimir Putin — positions out of step with recent conservative orthodoxy.

Former George W. Bush administration lawyer John Yoo said that he had deeply conservative friends “who would normally be utterly turned off by a guy like Trump,” yet supported him “only because of [the] appointment to Justice [Antonin] Scalia’s vacancy” on the Supreme Court. Conservative fixation with judges goes beyond the Supreme Court, including the lower courts as well. Noting that the Supreme Court hears a tiny fraction of the cases decided by appellate judges, Washington Post contributing columnist Hugh Hewitt challenged Trump’s conservative critics to “reconcile their vehement opposition to […]