Normally, someone writing in TAC giving advice to Democrats on how to handle some political question but be assumed to be trolling. But I hope I’ve got enough credibility at this point not to be so perceived.

This is by way of saying that my latest column at The Week is about the Gorsuch nomination, the the dilemmas it poses for Democrats:

Neil Gorsuch is unquestionably a very conservative judge. Like the late Justice Antonin Scalia, he’s a textualist and an originalist, someone who believes that the Constitution and ordinary statutes should be interpreted based on how their actual language would have been understood at the time. He’s ruled in favor of organizations seeking exemption from Obama’s contraceptive mandate on religious grounds, and wrote a book opposing assisted-suicide. He would be a thorn in the side of a future Democratic president who sought to expand government involvement in the economy in novel ways, or to further extend the scope of anti-discrimination law.

But he’s also a man with a reputation both for collegiality and independence of mind. He’s arguably a less prosecutor-friendly judge than President Obama’s previous choice, Merrick Garland. He’s been less-deferential to claims of executive power than either Garland or Scalia. And his defense of religious freedom has not by any means been limited to dominant religious groups. A conservative justice who views government with a jaundiced eye, and who privileges the legislature over the executive, could really come in handy if Trump were to infringe on press freedoms, or corrupt the federal bureaucracy, or further extend the reach of executive power beyond the precedents that Bush and Obama set — all serious concerns that liberals have voiced since the election.

So there’s a case to be made on the merits that liberals should support Gorsuch’s appointment. And there’s also a case for doing so on the politics.

After detailing that case — basically, that opposing Gorsuch will accomplish nothing and will alienate people whom the Democrats need to reach out to — I point out that the Democrats don’t have so much freedom of action on this question:

But the Democrats don’t have the luxury of thinking only about how to expand their coalition and fracture the opposition. They also have to keep their base happy. And their base would not be happy with anything less than total opposition.

Opponents of Gorsuch correctly point out that Trump only had the opportunity to appoint someone in the first place because the Republican Senate refused to even consider Obama’s nominee. (Gorsuch himself has criticized both parties for their shabby treatment of qualified judicial nominees.) The Democrats are understandably loathe to let that unprecedented obstruction stand without consequence.

They also point out that if Gorsuch’s nomination proceeds easily to approval, that this will encourage other aging justices like Anthony Kennedy to consider retirement. Once Gorsuch is approved, though, it will be harder to justify opposition to similarly-qualified conservative candidates, and the Democrats could quickly find themselves having facilitated the entrenchment of a right-wing majority on the Court.

Moreover, advocates of wall-to-wall opposition point to the success of the Tea Party in 2009-2010 as evidence that you don’t need to play to the center to win — that, arguably, it’s better to focus on energizing your base. That base would not only be deeply demoralized by any let-up in the opposition to Trump; it would consider the downgrading of priorities like reproductive rights to be an outright betrayal.

So what should they do?

To regain the initiative, Democrats need to focus their approach to Gorsuch on their fears of Trump. Ask him about the rights of non-citizens. Ask him about war powers. Ask him about political interference in regulatory oversight. Ask him about anti-trust. Ask him about government surveillance. Ask him about whistleblowers. Heck, ask him about the emoluments clause if you want. Make it look like you’re not trying to get business done or to make reasonable compromises — make it look like you’re trying to see if Trump might have played himself.

Read the whole thing there.