Really good piece by Ian Milhiser:

Gorsuch possesses all of the virtues that lead to personal success and none of the virtues that enable compassion. Clever and cocksure. Diligent and immune to self-reflection. His ascension to the Supreme Court represents a triumph of the Republican will. And there are many more of him waiting in the wings.

The reason the orange goon in the Oval Office is able to find such extraordinarily talented individuals to fill the federal bench is because he’s not really the one choosing them. As a candidate, Trump openly admitted that he worked with two conservative groups — the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society — to come up with lists of potential Supreme Court nominees that would be acceptable to conservatives. Neil Gorsuch was on one of those lists. So were Thapar and Larsen, along with two other people Trump nominated to federal appeals courts.

…

Indeed, delivering a learn-from-my-example-young-ones-even-though-I‘m-locked-out-of-top-jobs speech has become a kind of badge of honor reserved for many of the leading lights of the progressive legal community. The best example of this genre was offered by Pam Karlan, a Stanford law professor, voting rights expert, and current ACS board member that Obama considered for a judgeship but ultimately did not nominate.

“Would I like to be on the Supreme Court? You bet I would!” a defiant Karlan told Stanford law’s graduating class in 2009. “But not enough to have trimmed my sails for half a lifetime.”