The debt to Mitch McConnell

OPINION:

No other consideration drove conservatives to Donald Trump like the prospect of a U.S. Supreme Court dedicated to preserving the Constitution as it was written and honored for centuries. The Donald promised to appoint judges in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia to the seat vacated by Mr. Scalia’s death.

Mr. Trump can redeem that promise when he first takes office on Jan. 20 next year, thanks in good measure to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate majority leader who announced on the death of Judge Scalia that the majority of the Senate would defer action on President Obama’s proposed replacement until after the November election, and rallied his colleagues to keep the pledge.

Mr. McConnell, who is sometimes scolded by conservatives as insufficiently resolute, withstood pressure from the Democrats and their media allies, particularly after the president nominated Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, to fill the Scalia vacancy. Liberal pressure groups turned up the heat on Republican senators facing tough re-election campaigns, demanding that Judge Garland be confirmed at once.

Certain Republican senators, who sometimes wilt and wobble under pressure, fretted that the pledge to block the Garland nomination might be unwise because Hillary Clinton looked like a winner and it might be better to confirm Judge Garland now because a prospective President Clinton wouldn’t nominate anyone better. Keeping senators in line is always a test for a majority leader; it’s a chore like herding cats. But Sen. McConnell stood firm.

The grass-roots pressure mounted by the left stood firm, too. In Iowa, Democrats ran television ads applying pressure on Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and disrupted town-hall meetings with chants of “Do your job.” But Sen. Grassley, too, stood firm. He was in fact doing his job, as prescribed in the Constitution. The senators “advise and consent” to nominations, not act as mere rubber stamps.

By standing firm, Mr. McConnell not only gave hope to Americans who are determined to preserve the First Amendment, the most important amendment of all because it makes everything else possible, and the Second Amendment, which guarantees the individual’s right to bear arms and is under unrelenting attacks from the left. Voters across America understood the stakes, and counted on Sen. McConnell and his colleagues to hold fast until the nation spoke in November. The Supreme Court was in the balance for a generation.

Mrs. Clinton said as much in the final presidential debate. “When we talk about the Supreme Court,” she said, “it really raises the central issue of this election, namely, what kind of country are we going to be.” Identity politics had come to the High Court with President Obama’s appointment of Sonia Sotomayor, who said she would make her rulings as “a wise Latina.” Whoever fills the Scalia vacancy will owe his or her thanks to Mitch McConnell’s courage and stamina, and the loud and clear demands of American voters.