National Perspective: High-court consequences

By selecting Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, President Donald Trump produced an unusually revelatory moment. The country has seen the president as impulsive and instinctive, but rarely as deliberative. It has seen the extent of his resentment of the old political order, but rarely has seen him struggle with the limits of resentment as a political strategy.

It has witnessed the sort of change that can be reversed — a new Democratic administration can, for example, restore some of the economic regulations that the Trump team has eliminated — but now is witnessing change of a more permanent nature. Judge Kavanaugh is 53 years old. If he serves until the age when Justice Kennedy retired, he will have been on the bench in 2046, the year minorities are likely to surpass whites as the majority of the population.