How hard will Democrats fight against Trump's nominee?

In less fraught times, when a president has been elected with a minority of the popular vote, and with the Senate so closely split (51-49), a reasonable president would more likely nominate a moderate -- at least a non-ideological -- court appointee.   Just as Obama did in choosing Merrick Garland.

Lot of good that attempt at consensus did.   Mitch McConnell just grabbed the advantage and denied Garland even a hearing by the Judiciary Committee -- invoking a non-existent tradition of not considering a Supreme Court appointment so close to the end of president's term (when the seat opened due to Scalia's death, it was almost nine months until the election;  Obama nominated Garland on March 16, almost eight months before the election.)

Democrats went along with McConnell's trechery, more or less.   At least whatever they did was not effective.   But they are fired up this time, as McConnell evokes another made-up rule:   that his ban doesn't apply when it's not a presidential election at the end of a second term.   So it's OK for Trump to immediately nominate (less than five months from the election), and McConnell says the Senate will vote on it this fall, presumably before the November election.

There's another seldom mentioned fact:   McConnell says "let the people decide."  But the majority of voters in 2016 did not choose Donald Trump.   Hillary Clinton got almost 3 million more votes than did Trump.   So should it be the arcane electoral college process that is "the people's voice" -- or the popular vote that is "the people's voice"?

Yes, the Democrats were robbed.   Yes, they have an understandable rageful revenge that wants to deny Trump what was denied Obama.

But here's also a more rational argument from Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), heard Thursday night on "The Beat With Ari Melber" -- and repeated frequently by others since then.    Booker says that Trump should not make a nomination at this time, because he is under criminal investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

His nominee will likely be called upon to vote on any of several questions that may come before the court involving Mueller and Trump himself:   the right for Mueller to subpoena Trump to testify;   whether a sitting president can be indicted;   whether he can pardon himself;  whether the special counsel appointment was constitutional;  whether Mueller's report can be released to congress, or to the public.

Booker bolsters this with the knowledge that Trump has a habit of demanding loyalty from people he appoints or hires.    Why did he break all precedent by personally interviewing, in the Oval Office, the nominees to be U.S. Attorneys in the Southern District of New York and in the Washington, D.C. area of Virginia?  Presidents do not typically interview appointees at this level.   But Trump did -- just for these two spots -- and only those two out of the more than 50 U.S. Attorneys.

Does it have anything to do with the fact that those are the two places that cases against Trump are likely to come up?    New York, where he lives and where the Trump Organization operates;  and Washington, where anything during his presidency would be handled if an indictment were considered.   At least the new N.Y. U.S. attorney has recused himself from the Michael Cohen case.

Now the question is:   what are Democrats going to do about it?    Will they be more effective this time around?

Ralph