Trump’s lasting legacy grows as Supreme Court overturns Roe

There’s a debate about whether Trump’s resonance is beginning to fade

U.S. President Joe Biden rarely mentions his predecessor by name. But as he spoke to a nation processing a seismic shift in the rights of women, he couldn’t ignore Donald Trump’s legacy.

“It was three justices named by one president — Donald Trump — who were the core of today’s decision to upend the scales of justice and eliminate a fundamental right for women in this country,” Biden said Friday after the Supreme Court’s conservative majority voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling from 1973 that provided constitutional protections for women seeking abortions.

The abortion decision marked the apex in a week that reinforced the former president’s impact in Washington more than a year and a half after he exited the White House.

A court that includes three Trump-appointed conservatives also decided to weaken restrictions on gun ownership. And across the street at the Capitol, which was ravaged by a mob of Trump supporters in the final days of his presidency in 2021, new details surfaced of his gross violations of democratic norms. The House’s Jan. 6 committee used a public hearing last week to spotlight the intense pressure that Trump put on top Justice Department officials to overturn the 2020 election, along with discussions of blanket pardons for co-operative members of Congress.

The developments were a reminder of the awkward political bargain social conservatives embraced to achieve their ambitions. In refusing to consider Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee during the final year of his presidency, then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., ensured that the next president would be able to make his mark on the court. As Trump pledged to transform the Supreme Court’s ideological leanings — even providing a list of the judges he would choose from — reluctant conservative Republicans and evangelical Christians rallied behind Trump, a thrice-married man who had previously described himself as “very pro-choice.”

“When he ran in 2016, he promised that he would appoint conservative and pro-life judges to the federal courts starting with the U.S. Supreme Court. And he kept his word,” said Ralph Reed, an evangelical leader and chair of the The Faith and Freedom Coalition, who was criticized for his embrace of Trump. “Those in the faith community that felt it was worth taking a chance on Donald Trump in 2016 have been vindicated.”

The GOP is now at something of a turning point in its relationship with a man who has fundamentally transformed the party with his populist, “Make America Great Again” agenda and his fight against the establishment Republicans who used to control the party. There’s a growing debate within the party about whether Trump’s resonance is beginning to fade as he lays the groundwork for a third presidential run in 2024.

Trump himself seems somewhat uncertain about how to navigate the political fallout from the past week, particularly the abortion ruling. He has privately expressed concern to aides that the decision could energize Democrats going into the November elections, The New York Times first reported.

Those in the faith community that felt it was worth taking a chance on Donald Trump in 2016 have been vindicated.

RALPH REED THE FAITH AND FREEDOM COALITION