I will not pussyfoot around this issue.

If Donald J. Trump is handed another opportunity to nominate someone to the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly if the nominee would succeed one of the court’s liberal justices, all the battles we saw during his two prior confirmation efforts will pale in comparison.

Justice Neil Gorsuch was Trump’s first appointment. He succeeded a conservative icon on the court, the late Antonin Scalia. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was Trump pick No. 2. Kavanaugh succeeded Anthony Kennedy, who retired. Scalia leaned hard right; Kennedy was also a conservative, but voted on occasion with the liberal wing of the court.

The current court comprises a 5-4 conservative majority, which appears to more solidly conservative with Justice Kavanaugh sitting in place of Justice Kennedy.

The latest justice to come into public view has been Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who has been battling health issues lately. She has suffered from cancer; she has fallen at home; she recently was hospitalized for chills and fever. Justice Ginsburg is back home and will be back at work at the court soon.

Ginsburg vows to stay on the job. I pray that she is able to outlast the presidency of Donald Trump.

If not, though, then we had best settle in for the proverbially bloodiest political battle we will have witnessed since, oh, 1991 when President Bush nominated archconservative Clarence Thomas to replace ultraliberal Thurgood Marshall on the highest court in America.

You can rest assured that Donald Trump will do nothing to enrage the hard-right base that clings to its support of the president. He will select someone who adheres to that far-right philosophy, thus cementing the court’s conservative majority possibly for generations.

The framers established a lifetime appointment process for the federal judiciary ostensibly to remove politics from the judicial branch of government. Sadly, that notion has not held up over the centuries since the founding of our republic.

If the current president is handed another opportunity to select a justice to the Supreme Court, you will see what I mean.

I guarantee it.