Democrats must confront Gorsuch with his prior declarations about the intense and inappropriate politicization of the confirmation process, and do it in the manner of deft cross-examiners. They must force him to eat every word, one by one, before the American people. They should then move on to Garland’s 10-month limbo, ostensibly as a way to assess Gorsuch’s views of the proper role of the Supreme Court in particular, and his own views about good judging. Here is a possible line of questioning:

Judge Gorsuch, do you still agree that Merrick Garland is among the finest lawyers of his generation?

In your opinion has Merrick Garland been an outstanding judge of the D.C. Circuit?

In your view are you a better judge than Merrick Garland?

Do you have the same length of service as Judge Garland on the appellate court? (No)

Have you, like Judge Garland, served as the chief judge of the Circuit on which you sit? (No)

Is the D.C .Circuit, commonly referred to as the second most important court in the country?

Do you know of any basis, Judge Gorsuch, as you evaluate your own performance as a judge by which you are more qualified than Merrick Garland to sit on the United States Supreme Court?

If Gorsuch is the sort of honest intellect that his supporters claim, he will be forced to concede Garland’s qualifications. For that reason, I expect Republicans will try to rule these questions about Garland somehow out of order. Democrats should stick to their guns. If blocked, they should get up and leave and boycott the confirmation process thereafter.

If the hearings go on, then Democrats should insist that Gorsuch answer questions about his own personal beliefs. Once again, he has given them an unusual opportunity to do so.

After the death of Justice Scalia, Gorsuch appeared at Case Western Reserve Law School to deliver a scholarly address. He was slated to talk about the mess that has become of civil litigation. Instead, he used the occasion to deliver a paean to Scalia and to outline his own philosophy of decision-making. Gorsuch is a canny guy, clearly. He knew that his young age, among other factors, would make him a serious candidate for the Supreme Court if the Republicans were to win the presidency. His article was little more than a brief to the Senate Judiciary Committee, pointing out how even-handed and measured he’d be as a Justice.

But in the process, Gorsuch boxed himself in. Judges, he insisted, “should be in the business of declaring what the law is, using the traditional tools of interpretation, rather than pronouncing the law as they might wish it to be in light of their own political views . . .” Because Gorsuch maintained that he—like Scalia—rules on judicial questions without regard to his personal beliefs, those beliefs, according to his own catechism, would not control how he would rule on the cases before him.

Thus, his beliefs are fair game for questioning, because the senators, like most of us, know that political beliefs do impact judges’ votes on hard questions. Democrats again should feed his words back to him and press him repeatedly to answer whether he, personally, believes in man-made climate change, when he believes life begins, and whether, in his view, federal administrative agencies have too much power. He will try to dance away, and they should continue to demand answers. Again, if he won’t respond, they should leave.

In the long run, the Democrats have no power to block Gorsuch, except in the unlikely event that a solid majority of Americans comes to view anyone but Garland in Scalia’s seat as an affront to the Constitution. Accordingly, I see absolutely nothing to be gained by playing nice with Republicans. There is no advantage in acceding to Gorsuch because of the threat that Republicans will change Senate rules and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court candidates.

The Republicans’ might makes right approach suggests that they will eliminate the filibuster whenever they need to in order to get a nominee confirmed. In effect, the filibuster is already gone. By choosing dramatic moves in the confirmation process, the Democrats would be demonstrating to Americans two underlying truths: that the Republicans have chosen power over principle, and that Gorsuch, whatever his qualifications, will never be a legitimate justice of the Supreme Court.