President Trump’s first term was crucial for establishing a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come. With a Republican majority in the Senate, Trump was easily able to install three young justices on the Supreme Court of the United States. With six Republican-appointed justices, five of whom are members of the Federalist Society, Trump effectively changed the composition of SCOTUS, handing control of the highest court in the land to conservative rationalists.
In 2016, after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made every effort to stop President Obama from appointing a new justice to the court on the grounds that it was an election year. Obama’s efforts to appoint Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court failed, and subsequently, after the election, Trump appointed conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to the court.
When the court’s moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, Trump had another opportunity to appoint Justice Brett Kavanaugh, even after accusations of sexual assault and a controversial trial. Finally, upon the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, Trump appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett after McConnell shamelessly greenlit the nomination, having denied Obama the same right.
Since then, many have feared that the court’s conservative majority would overtake the liberals in every crucial decision, leading to many 6-3 opinions. Contrary to popular belief, the court has had many unexpected opinion pairings, including unanimous decisions and conservatives siding with liberals.
As it stands, the court has three justices—Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson—who are defined as the court’s liberal bloc. On the other end of the spectrum, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are two members of the conservative majority who have shown no sign of moderation or cooperation with the other side. These five justices occasionally break away from their group stance but are mostly rigidly firm on their side.
In contrast with these justices, Chief Justice John Roberts has seen a significant shift in ideology in recent years. Once a reliably conservative vote, along with Thomas and Alito, Roberts has become a crucial moderate vote, often siding with the liberals. Many have tried to decipher the legal or ideological characteristic to which Roberts’s drastic shift could be attributed; however, it is not a shift in ideology but rather a strategic move.
After the appointment of Justice Barrett to the court, Roberts saw growing distrust in the justice system and was concerned for the future of the court. His siding with the liberals is a way to restore balance to a lopsided scale with six conservative justices on the bench. However, the chief justice is far from a liberal justice. His vote remains very much a swing vote that has to be persuaded on a case-by-case basis.
Like Roberts, the three Trump appointees are making their mark by transforming into moderate justices on particular issues. These justices are viewed as swing votes in many cases and have found themselves siding with the liberals many times.
Justice Gorsuch has been the most unpredictable figure on this court. Despite having the record of being the third-most conservative justice, after Thomas and Alito, Gorsuch has sided with the liberal justices on several occasions. He has voted against discrimination based on sexual orientation under Title VII and Title IX in two separate cases, sided with liberals on issues of Native American sovereignty, and made a staunch case for challenging the insular decisions and granting territories more rights.
Justice Kavanaugh has also long been speculated as the key swing vote. The most notable decision in which he and Roberts supported the liberal justices was an Alabama redistricting case, arguing for a second Black-majority district. Kavanaugh’s opinion in that case handed Democrats two victories in 2024 congressional elections in Alabama and Louisiana.
While popular opinion dictates that Kavanaugh may be at the center of the court, Justice Barrett has recently shown herself willing to break away from the MAGA administration and has sided with the liberals numerous times. Most recently, Barrett sided with the liberals against Trump’s deportation efforts. This was not the first time she voted against MAGA. Previously, she sided with the liberals in cases such as voting against the DOGE congressional aid freeze and dissented against a conservative ruling to limit the EPA’s pollution regulation powers.
Her slow pattern of becoming a moderate judge indicates that her gradual shift away from the populist far right is imminent; however, she is still a conservative at her core, having voted conservatively on several key issues such as abortion, affirmative action and Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
For those who believe that America’s highest court has sold out, you may well be right—but there is hope that, over time, the court will shift toward a place of open-mindedness and genuine civil discourse. Trump’s nominees offer a glimmer of hope that the court might yet restore itself to its intended, moderate, and impartial form.
Of the last 20 justices, 15 were Republican appointees and five were Democratic appointees. Yet some of those Republican-appointed justices—including David Souter, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens—went on to become some of the court’s most reliably liberal voices.
While some justices may continue to rule with an iron fist, guided by their entrenched beliefs, history suggests that the court has an enduring capacity to recalibrate and find balance.
