Gorsuch Furor Shows GOP’s Struggle to Build Ideology-First Court

Conservatives long frustrated by their Supreme Court picks going rogue once on the bench spent decades building the perfect pipeline and threw millions at their model nominees’ confirmation, culminating in a rock-solid 5-4 majority under President Donald Trump.

Then, in just a week, two of those Republican-appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, enraged conservatives by penning opinions curbing LGBTQ job discrimination and protecting “Dreamer” immigrants.

No one was angrier than Trump, who nominated Gorsuch and has made confirming judicial nominees a cornerstone of his reelection campaign. He lashed out in a tweet criticizing “these horrible & ...