Moment of truth for the pro- life movement

President Trump is set to unveil tonight his pick to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant for almost year since the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. When he does so, we are going to learn a lot about either Trump’s commitment to keeping his promises, or the conservative movement’s commitment to principle.

Trump’s vow to appoint prolife justices is perhaps the most important promise for him to keep. President Clinton’s voters once chose to overlook his problematic peccadilloes because, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Trump’s conservative base did the same last year, also because of a preeminent concern.

This time, the defining issue was the Supreme Court. According to exit polls, one in five voters named Supreme Court appointments as the most important factor in their vote. Trump won them by a whopping 15 points.

On top of that, Trump is filling the sizable shoes of Scalia, perhaps the most revered conservative judge of his time. So replacing him with anything less than a Scalia, even if it would undoubtedly be an upgrade over anyone named by a President Hillary Clinton, is a loss leader for conservatives. Coming off the clumsy rollout of his immigration executive orders, the last thing Trump needs is to make a stealth pick that instead of uniting conservatives causes them to turn on each other.

That’s what happened when President George W. Bush named Harriet Miers, whose views on abortion were not clear. Should it happen again, this is when the integrity of the conservative movement will be tested.

Someone like Thomas Hardiman, who is one of the leading names being considered according to media speculation, is basically a blank slate when it comes to the pro- life issue. If Trump selects Hardiman, the conservative movement must immediately commit to fully vetting his prolife views publicly before spending an iota of its political capital in an effort to place him on the highest court. And if Hardiman comes up short, the movement must refuse him as it once refused Miers.

The fear isn’t so much that someone like a Hardiman would be a disaster for conservatives as David Souter was, but that he’d be a stealth candidate who disappoints us at key times like Chief Justice John Roberts. For as angry as conservatives were at President Obama for using Obamacare’s birth control provisions as a means to fight nuns in federal court, we should keep in mind that if Roberts hadn’t legislated from the bench not once but twice to save Obamacare, in 2012 and 2015, that argument never would have happened.

Though the execution has been erratic, President Trump has actually done a decent job attempting to keep his promises. Let’s hope this continues tonight. If it doesn’t, let’s hope the conservative movement keeps its promises to hold him accountable.