Gregory's ServerConsider that the American Bar Association, a voluntary organization involved in academic and ethical standards of US law schools, used to help vet potential Supreme Court nominees for over 50 years.
Well, some people were unhappy w/ this because the ABA wasn't "conservative enough" and wanted to find a parallel "All-American" political organization to do it. 2005: enter the Federalist Society, George W Bush, and Alito.
The Federalist Society is a particularly insidious example of how political trends in the USA change and destroy norms.
Take some norm or non-partisan organization doing their thing. A typical conservative strategy is to find it isn't conservative enough, so they set up a parallel organization with a conservative bent and a more patriotic name. Then try to replace the existing norm or non-partisan organization with their own, shifting the whole culture with them.