It turns out that the most important voice in the Supreme Court nomination battle is not the American people’s, as Senate Republicans have insisted from the moment Justice Antonin Scalia died last month. It is not even that of the senators. It’s the National Rifle Association’s.

That is what the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said the other day when asked about the possibility of considering and confirming President Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, after the November elections. “I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame-duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association,” he told “Fox News Sunday.”

Put aside the absurd rationales Senate Republicans have trotted out for not holding a hearing on the Garland nomination, and consider how extreme this latest position is. As long as Republicans control the Senate, Mr. McConnell says, they will delegate their judgment to the N.R.A.’s paranoid far-right lobbyists, whom nobody elected, and who staunchly oppose measures, like universal background checks, supported by 90 percent of Americans — and three-quarters of N.R.A. members.

Mr. McConnell says he wants the next president to fill the vacancy. But if a Democrat wins the election, the N.R.A. will surely oppose any person he or she nominates. What will Mr. McConnell and his caucus do then?