>

And then he gets steamrolled by the other 5 conservatives now on that same issue, since his dissent doesn't matter.
Other than Robert not likely. Republicans learned a lesson with Souter and they not work hard to make sure the candidates are Federalist Society Approved. Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results. >


Democrats are likely going to apply strong tests to get close to the same results.

I mean, they've had that for decades now. How often is it a member of the liberal wing that joins the conservative wing on any decision? The closest one I can think of was Kagan joining in Masterpiece Cake case and that wasn't even on the merits.
I'm ideological uniformity and lockstep voting is the hallmark of liberal Justices. The Democrats work has already been achieved. >

You don't even know what Citizen's United was about do you? You didn't even get the voting right. >

Switches as in consistently votes with the liberals on consequential decisions? Very little to no chance. A conservative appointee may not be totally in line with everything the GOP wants but usually by the time they get to that level they have a well documented history and legal theory which is quite different than the people Democratic presidents would nominate. They may be quite “independent” but not full fledged liberal.
If Dems want to get to a place where there is more equal ideological shift (or even a liberal majority) they need to either wait until conservative judges leave office or alternatively expand the court. Expanding the court would require abolishing the filibuster and there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional. If that happens it would trigger a potential crisis. >


there is the possibility the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional

It's important to note that they'd still have a cloture vote, but the threshold would be reduced to 50 instead of 60. This is to get around some lazy wording in the Senate's construction.
If SCOTUS rules that unconstitutional, I'm not sure on what grounds they could possibly do that. 3 of them are on the court with the same rule (50 vote cloture) in place for their confirmations. Such an absurd ruling would actually merit the expansion of the court justified. >

It may have been a bit unclear but I was actually talking about ruling the court expansion unconstitutional and not the filibuster. If SCOTUS says “these are illegitimate judges” and refused to swear in the new appointments then what happens next becomes a bit murky. Typically the only way for a Supreme Court ruling to be reversed is if another supreme court ruling is issued which wouldn’t happen anytime soon. In theory if Supreme Court justices are making rulings that are clearly unconstitutional then they could be impeached but such a move would require a 2/3rds senate majority. Maybe the executive branch could order the marshals to try to force the newly appointed judges to be sworn in but even then the legal grounds to do that is… well murky at best. If the Supreme Court says “no court expansion is allowed” then I don’t really know what happens next. >


I don’t really know what happens next

It isn't murky. There are only 2 things that happen if SCOTUS rules that expansion is unconstitutional or refuses to sit a confirmed Justice. Either Democrats back down and agree and allow SCOTUS to usurp both the legislative and executive branches and become a completely autonomous body with absolute power over the country and lifetime appointments, or Democrats don't back down and force the appointment of the new Justices by force, even forcibly removing rebel Justices from their chambers.
The constitution is perfectly clear that Congress has the power to expand the court. There is precedent for Congress expanding the court. It was originally 6, went as high as 10, and is now 9. If somehow they managed to block this, then we'd no longer have a functional constitution in this country. >

You won’t see them shift on core issues, but off-radar issues are different.
A good example is Neil Gorsuch. He spent 11 years on the 10th circuit court of appeals, which hears lots of cases involving Native Americans. His experience there means he almost always rules for tribal rights, issuing very strong opinions.