From The New York Times‘ Elizabeth Dais and Jeremy W. Peters:

Early Thursday morning, less than 24 hours after Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced his retirement, scores of conservative leaders and grass-roots strategists dialed into a conference call to gear up for their most significant Supreme Court nomination battle in decades.

For years, conservatives had been losing the culture wars at the court, often to Justice Kennedy’s vote. Now, President Trump had a chance to remake a generation of law and to unite the disparate coalitions of the Republican Party — evangelicals, social and small government conservatives, Second Amendment enthusiasts and pro-business Republicans — ahead of a critical midterm election.

[…]

“This is probably the single-most ‘I told you so’ moment if you need to go back and smack your ‘Never Trump’ friends,” said Frank Cannon, a veteran social conservative strategist.

Read the full article here.