It’s important to disabuse ourselves of a myth regarding the selection of federal judges.

That myth suggests that the federal judiciary — at every level — is somehow insulated from politics. It isn’t. If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that politics has played a huge role in the selecting of these men and women.

The nation is about to witness the nomination and pending confirmation fight over the next justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced his retirement after 30 years on the nation’s highest court.

The fight already has begun. Democratic senators are pledging to wage all-out political war against a Republican president who’ll nominate Kennedy’s successor.

Let us not be coy, either, about the benchmarks that Donald John Trump is going to lay out in front of the person he nominates. That individual will have to oppose a woman’s right to choose an abortion; he or she will have to stand with the president on many other issues, such as immigration and civil rights, campaign finance and environmental protection.

Will the president ask this individual in so many words how he or she would decide an issue that comes before the court? I would hope not, although given Trump’s ignorance of government and decorum, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least that he would pose the question.

These nominations are driven by politics seemingly as much as they are driven by judicial philosophy, credentials and legal standing.

The founders created a system that grants lifetime appointments for federal judges with the notion that they would immune from political pressure. They were only partly correct. The immunity kicks in after they are confirmed. The confirmation battles become all about the politics of the moment, of the individuals being considered and of the president who nominates them.

So, the fight begins. It’s a political battle of the first order. Just as it’s always been.