On the night of 9 July, the television network ABC interrupted the reality TV show The Bachelorette for some breaking news from the reality TV president. At a press conference in the White House, Donald Trump announced that the retiring Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy would be replaced by Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kennedy was considered a “swing voter” on the culture war issues that so often reach the bench. He was nominated in 1987 by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan, but wrote the court’s opinion in favour of same-sex marriage in 2015. Brett Kavanaugh is a hardline conservative who has described a ban on assault weapons as “unconstitutional”, and once wrote an opinion defending a voter ID law which opponents said disenfranchised thousands of non-white voters. He has also said that sitting presidents cannot be indicted, which must be reassuring for Trump.
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