The Religious Right and Trump's Victory

[MarkD]

I see it this way: for the last 48 years, Republicans have been emphasizing their promise to appoint conservative Justices to the Supreme Court as a way of gaining more votes from conservative Democrats; as some might say, "pandering." It's crucial to recognize what ways they delivered on their promise and what ways they did not.
Richard Nixon started this by emphasizing "law and order," and that the Warren Court greatly expanded the rights of the criminally-accused (Mapp v. Ohio, Gideon v. Wainwright, Escobedo v. Illinois, Miranda v. Arizona). I believe that, to Nixon, the most important quality to look for when choosing who to appoint was that his appointees should go no further to the left on that kind of issue -- don't do any more expanding of the rights of the accused. But I also believe that that very quality was the most important thing to look for, as well, to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In Bush's case, it was that quality, at least, that Bush looked for when choosing to appoint David Souter; the reason to choose Clarence Thomas was because of his views on Affirmative Action.
Ronald Reagan seemed as if he was going to appoint "cultural conservatives" to the SCOTUS, because he campaigned as an opponent of the Court's decisions on the topic of school prayer and abortion. Emphasizing those two issues did gain him a lot of votes, but he did not try to fulfill any implicit promise that his appointees were going to reverse decisions like Engel v. Vitale and Roe v. Wade. Indeed, Rev. Jerry Falwell pointedly objected to the appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor precisely there was no evidence at all that she was going to overturn Roe. But Reagan didn't actually look for the quality of being "conservative" about cultural issues like school prayer, abortion, and gay rights. He looked for the quality of being "conservative" about crime -- oriented toward "law and order," and isn't the guilt of the accused more important than whether the police did not dot every "I" and cross every "T" on their application for a search warrant. Bush 41 did not try to appoint "cultural conservatives" either; he wanted that conservatism about crime when he appointed David Souter and Bush wanted conservatism about Affirmative Action when he appointed Clarence Thomas.
Bush 43 emphasized his opposition to gay marriage -- the idea that it should be up to the legislatures to decide how to handle that issue, not the courts -- and in the end, his appointees to the Court did fulfill the promise of not going along with liberals on that. But the most important failure, regarding how Republicans treated their appointments to the Court, was that Anthony Kennedy has performed as a compromising "moderate" on the cultural conservative issues such as school prayer, abortion, and gay rights.
But remember, he was not chosen for the SCOTUS because of his views on cultural issues; he was chosen because he would be -- like Nixon's appointees in 1969-1971, and like Reagan's two previous appointees, O'Connor and Scalia -- conservative on the subject of the rights of the criminally accused.
So I have in mind a crucial question: since Republicans have not actually been trying, in the last 48 years, to appoint anyone to the SCOTUS because the appointees were cultural conservatives, why would culturally conservative voters be so supportive in Trump? Can't they see, from the pattern of the last 48 years, that they have been "pandered" to already; have been given promises that were usually not fulfilled?