When Amy Coney Barrett came before that microphone in the Rose Garden to make her official introduction to the wider public, you knew you were getting a different sort of Supreme Court nominee. This wasn’t polished civics instructor Neil Gorsuch or earnest political operator Brett Kavanaugh. Here was a joyous, American-as-apple-pie judge next door. “I love the United States, and I love the United States Constitution,” she said on that Saturday afternoon at the White House. “I am truly humbled by the prospect of serving on the Supreme Court.” What a breath of fresh air amid the 2020 miasma, disarming critics and even dispelling some of the toxic clouds over Washington. Barrett’s resume is impressive: Latin honors in college and law school, a Supreme Court clerkship, a distinguished professorial career with prolific scholarship. Yet the...