If Donald Trump gets another Supreme Court pick...

CONSERVATIVES MAY not love everything about Donald Trump, but the 45th president’s record of installing federal judges has delighted them. In barely two years in the White House, with guidance from the Federalist Society, a conservative legal organisation, Mr Trump has seated 104 judges on the district and circuit courts and won confirmation battles for two Supreme Court justices. The high-court picks—Neil Gorsuch replacing a like-minded Antonin Scalia and Brett Kavanaugh taking the seat of the more moderate Anthony Kennedy—have bolstered a 5-4 conservative majority. With one more appointment, Mr Trump could capture a third of the highest court and tilt it conservative for generations.

Will he get the chance? Clarence Thomas, who at 70 is the longest-serving and most thoroughly conservative justice, recently swatted away rumours of retirement. Two of the four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, are octogenarians. In January a third bout with cancer led Ms Ginsburg to miss work for the first time in a quarter of a century. When she returned to the bench her posture and voice were perkier. But some liberals rue Ms Ginsburg’s decision not to retire a few years ago, when Barack Obama could have chosen her successor. If she leaves the bench under Mr Trump’s tenure, she could be replaced by a rising star of the...