While verifying that most of the conservative supreme court was involved with Bush V. Gore (everyone except Gorsuch for those who are), I came across something saying Clarence Thomas was close friends with Scalia and his behavior in the court changed after Scalia died.

Going back a bit in history...

At the end of Obama's presidency, Scalia died under very questionable circumstances which looked like a weird occultish hit job (basically the type of stuff Obama's compadres were involved in). After he died, no autopsy was performed. Obama immediately went to nominate Garland for the court. The republicans in turn refused to allow Garland to be nominated and many people were outraged over this (this might have been the first big pre-trump outrage).

Part of me wondered if the specific reason the Republicans took a hardline no stance on Garland being nominated was because they knew Scalia was assassinated and refused to give up his replacement to the perpetrators. People in the military told me when Obama was president, he made a lot of bad decisions that really weakened/threatened the military like he was intentionally trying to sabotage it, so I would not be surprised if he'd make a power play like that against the SC.

If this did in fact happen, it would explain part of why Trump appointed so many Judges with past history to Bush V. Gore. Trump has taken some very aggressive/balsy moods instead of backing down (ie. he's switching the military over to loyalists) and much of this rests of him having complete faith in the supreme court.

If I was on the supreme court, while I would probably hold a grudge at politicians defaming me (Biden for Clarence Thomas and Kamala for Brett Kavanaugh), I would hold a deep hatred for people who knocked off my close friend (beyond Thomas and Scalia specifically, the conservative justices have to be somewhat close as they spend so much time together).

I think it's actually very possible that some of the conservative justices wanted to be free of the deep state, but were powerless to do so and Trump made a deal with them before the election to help them do this while offering protection.

Just a theory, but it keeps on coming to my head as I watch how this all plays out.