My guess is that the mourning period for the senate filibuster will be shorter than an episode of your favorite sit-com. But personally, that’s not what bothers me about this.

Making it easier for a Supreme Court nominee to sail through the confirmation process is, imo, a really bad thing for America. A process that’s difficult encourages the nomination of outstanding candidates, simply because the lesser-qualified are much more likely to fail. It also encourages vigorous, passionate debate, as even an outstanding candidate will be heavily scrutinized and will need to do extremely well in order to be confirmed. This is, it seems to me, exactly the process we want.

Lowering the bar from 60 to 51 senate votes will put us in a place where mediocrity may often be entirely sufficient to obtain confirmation, and where debate over a candidate may often be shorter and less meaningful than it is now. A willingness to toe the party line may become more important than a judicial record.

This too will be part of Trump’s legacy–a Supreme Court to which it’s much easier to ascend. Why shoot for excellence when in Trump’s America, “good enough” is good enough? It’s yet another sign that Trump is quite undisturbed by the fact that he’s putting America in free-fall.