When President Trump announced his shortlist for the Supreme Court during the 2016 campaign, it was a clear signal to conservatives to get on his bandwagon, filled as it was with Federalist Society-approved names. Now that his re-election prospects are sketchy, Trump has released a new shortlist. It worked the first time, after all.
The interesting thing about the 2016 list is that it still had the quality of being -- for Trump -- subtle. Unless you pay enough attention to the endless ideological maneuverings to control the courts, the names on the list (and its FedSoc provenance) might not've meant much to you. But if you were aware of those things, invested in those fights, and conservative, the list was a good reason to think Trump might not be a squish on issues important to you.
This time around, though, Trump is taking no chances with subtlety when it comes to motivating the base. It's one reason he's even more plainly appealing to white racism during this campaign. But the boldface names on his new SCOTUS list -- Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley -- are meant to get the attention of the most casual conservative. They're known culture warriors who appear regularly on cable news, not the coy legal eggheads known to insiders. Trump is fairly screaming that he'll appoint anti-abortion judges this time around. The man is known for saying the quiet parts out loud. The closer the election gets, it seems, it's saying the out loud parts even louder than he once did.
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