John Yoo and Jeremy Rabkin: don't fall for the SCOTUS-justices argument

Two top-notch legal scholars with their heads on straight put that ploy to rest:

As conservative law professors, we share the concern that a Hillary Clinton victory would halt decades of efforts to restore an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.  Since Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February, the court has been divided between four very liberal justices and four conservatives (some more than others).  Central constitutional concerns, including religious freedom, voting rights, property rights, the death penalty and gun control are  up for grabs, possibly turning on the views of the next new justice.

Trump himself has been gloating over the leverage the situation sets up.  “They have no choice,” he said on the stump in Virginia not long ago.  “Even if you can’t stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, you’re going to vote for me.  You know why?  Justices of the Supreme Court.”

But the Supreme Court is not enough. Our nation confronts a revanchist Russia; a bellicose, expansionist China; terrorism in Europe; and civil war in the Middle East — in short, a world reeling at  the edge of chaos. The president's first responsibilities are to maintain national security, advance our national interests in foreign affairs and provide direction for the military. As Alexander Hamilton observed, the framers of the Constitution vested the executive power in one person, the president, to ensure that the United States could conduct its foreign relations with “decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch.”
Faced with mounting international instability, Trump’s answer is to promise an unpredictable and unreliable America.  He has proposed breaking U.S. commitments to NAFTA and the World Trade Organization, closing our military bases in Japan and South Korea, repudiating security guarantees to NATO allies, pulling out of the Middle East, and ceding Eastern Europe to Russia and East Asia to China.  A Trump presidency invites a cascade of global crises.  Constitutional order will not thrive at home in a world beset by threats and disorder.

While he is shaking up the world, Trump will also nominate conservatives to the federal courts — or so he says.  But no one should rely on his vague promises.  He has already flip-flopped on numerous core issues, such as the minimum wage, tax rates and entitlement reform.  Even when he announced his list of judges in May, Trump would not be pinned down. 

They conclude their argument by pointing out that supposedly reliable justices sometimes surprise us unpleasantly.

Sorry, Laura and Sean, we're still not buyin' what you're sellin'.