Fighting Gorsuch is hopeless. Democrats should do it anyway.

With just 48 votes, all Senate Democrats can do is filibuster, denying McConnell the 60 votes he needs for a final vote on the nomination. In response, McConnell could employ the “nuclear option” — changing the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court confirmations. In the end, Gorsuch would be approved anyway.

But I believe Democrats should wage, and lose, this fight. The 60-vote standard looks more and more like an anachronistic holdover from the time when senators prided themselves on putting the nation ahead of ideology. These days, so many votes hew strictly to party lines that it is difficult to get anything done. The Senate is supposed to be deliberative, not paralyzed.

And I can’t help thinking back to 2009. Republicans made an all-out effort to stop the Affordable Care Act. Their motives were purely political; some GOP senators railed against policies they had favored in the past. Ultimately, they failed. Obamacare became law.

But this losing battle gave tremendous energy and passion to the tea party movement — which propelled Republicans to a sweeping victory in the 2010 midterm election. It is hard not to see an analogous situation on the Democratic side right now.