Funny anecdote, I worked 40 hrs/wk during one semester of law school for academic credit as an “extern” for a federal judge, working in chambers along with his two clerks. He was an older judge, and I don’t think I knew it at the time, but he was high up in the Reagan DOJ and was barely confirmed because he was “too conservative.” Well, this 75 y/o stodgy, “conservative” judge was actually relatively moderate and basically stuck to the law.
Both his full time clerks (recent law school grads) were at least as liberal as me (one, a guy from Berkeley law, was a woman studies grad who was into IP law and pro-Napster [I was into IP law and anti-Napster]), the other was a liberal Jewish woman and future law prof from UMich). The judge was pretty consistently non ideological, invariably hired fairly liberal clerks, and came out on the “correct” side of the few high profile cases he handled.
Now, granted, this federal court was in the Bay Area, and situations will vary, but one of the top 3 concerns of the conservative intelligentsia in the 30 years from 1970-2000 was that many of their appointed judges had “turned” on them. This is why you only see appointments of people like Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh these days, where there’s near certainty that they are “true believers”. However, many of the lower court appointments, even by Trump, are simply strivers who got in with a “bad crowd” (federalist society, religious organizations, senate offices, what have you) and, now that they got a lifetime appointment will want to be thought of as serious within the broader legal community and will curtail their enthusiasm for dipshittery.
edited to add: I suspect that the Trump administration has “radicalized” a good part of the “information” workforce, including lawyers, engineers, doctors, programmers, etc, and there will be long term consequences for policy. McConnell and the GOP made their deal with the devil, “heightening the contradictions,” and the bill will ultimately come due. The Ken Burns Civil War documentary has the story of a South Carolina newspaper publisher who was very pro succession and civil war for a few years prior to the conflict, arguing that it was just, right, and would be easy. Well, he shot himself in the head not long after the surrender. Sometimes it’s better to agitate and reap the rewards of resentment than to actually do battle.
