Another one of President Donald Trump's key policy ambitions has been shot down by the U.S. Supreme Court — and for us Nevadans, it means our mail-in ballots will be showing up as usual without unnecessary federal interference. 

Considering Trump's disdain and contempt for anything or anyone who gets in the way of his agenda, it's unsurprising to see him lash out at the conservative justices who sided with liberals on the bench to halt his hasty attempt at taking over our local elections. However, it also demonstrates two key points that we, as voters and citizens, shouldn't overlook. 

The first point is obvious: Trump expects unfettered sycophancy from anyone he has helped in the past.

In a Truth Social rant about the way the court is letting "Dumocrats" (most people don't realize there's a "b" in "dumb") ruin the nation, he said, "These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court." 

Clearly, Trump expected a rubber stamp from every single judge who he has appointed to the bench. 

This expectation is, of course, nothing new from Trump. For example, the magician Penn Jillette pointed out back in 2012 that on the show Celebrity Apprentice, Trump's firing decisions were largely based on who was sucking up to him the most during the show. 

And little has changed over the years. In his first term, his administration was a revolving door for "brilliant" Republican staff members who were only later unceremoniously dismissed and branded as "losers" because they failed to unctuously indulge whatever monarchical whim he had at any given moment. 

Others have similarly found themselves on the receiving end of Trump's rhetorical assaults for minor transgressions. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), for example, merely requested Trump fulfill his campaign promise to release the Epstein files and refrain from entering into a new war — and Massie was primaried as a result of sticking to his principles. 

Here in Nevada, former state Sen. James Settelmeyer (R-Minden) — a lifelong Northern Nevada conservative — didn't even directly criticize Trump. Instead, he simply failed to prostrate himself before the president with as much zeal as his primary opponent, and lost as a result.

But my second point should be highly encouraging for our republic, regardless of one's personal opinions about the GOP's devolution into a cult of personality: The judicial system is still largely fulfilling its role as a constitutional guardrail — and we have those conservatives on the bench to partially thank for it. 

Trump's attempted takeover of the mail-in-ballot system isn't the only policy ambition the high court has rebuked from this administration. The administration's initial tariff-by-diktat scheme and an attempt to rewrite birthright citizenship are two other high-profile examples. And while plenty of other cases have gone the administration's way, it's worth noting that all three of the above-mentioned cases were not only key platforms of Trump's second stint in the White House, but also deeply injurious to our constitutional order. 

To be sure, the "conservative" judges have often been split — but the reason for that is they are following their own understanding of these constitutional issues and doing what they believed to be right by the law, not placating a populist president, pundits or even each other. 

Undoubtedly, this confounds Trump as much as it enrages him. In his mind, he "hired" those jurists to be loyal abettors in his grand plan to "Make America Great Again," not to faithfully interpret and decipher complex constitutional questions. 

Unfortunately, Trump isn't the only one who expected his judicial nominations to be automatic "yes men" on the bench. Far too many progressives shared a similar expectation — leading to absurd efforts among activists to pack the court in response to the current conservative majority. 

Ironically, such reforms would fundamentally erode the court's ability to operate as a constitutional guardrail in the way it traditionally has. Far from protecting the public from a corrupt judiciary, packing the court would allow future administrations to more easily remake the bench to cater to their own populist whims — precisely the sort of subservience Trump undoubtedly expected (and progressives undoubtedly feared) would come from the current court. 

In other words, as imperfect as it might be, at least the status quo is proving largely effective at restricting a president from turning the judicial system into an extension of their own political party — as is evidenced by this administration's decidedly mixed legal record in recent years.

And, more importantly, that mixed record demonstrates that fealty to the Constitution has not devolved within the conservative law movement the way it has within the GOP. 

This shouldn't be surprising. Policy outcomes are simply not as important to dedicated jurists as getting serious constitutional questions "right." As the late Justice Antonin Scalia once explained it, "If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong."

Thankfully, many of Trump's judicial picks have proven to be individuals who are deeply dedicated to being "good and faithful" jurists — regardless of what that might mean for the policy ambitions of the party that helped put them on the bench. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas and founder of Schaus Creative LLC, an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him on Twitter @schausmichael or on Substack @creativediscourse.