I suspect moderates (and more senior folk) in both parties will tend to threaten a nay-vote on more extreme nominees, both in the interest of having a sane court system (in the case of moderates), and to avoid provoking retaliation from the other side (in the case of people who have been around a long time).

>>I suspect moderates (and more senior folk) in both parties will tend to threaten a nay-vote on more extreme nominees

In cases where very ideological nominees have been presented in recent years there is no evidence that moderates have been prone to block them. So it isn't clear now what a senator could gain could gain by blocking his own parties nominee. It would require enough senators from the majority party to switch and vote against their party and maintain that united opposition against a candidate whose ideology they agree with simply because they may have qualms about how extreme his ideology is.

I'll take a model that iterates often, with higher likelihood of variance in ideology, over one that optimizes for moderation at the expense of gridlock.

Not that I'm disagreeing, but what if the minority believes that all of the nominees are over-ideological candidates?

Then reality sets in and the majority (finally) exercises its constitutional powers to govern.

Ah, I get it, we fall back to the worst example of democracy; screw the minority.

What part of "you need to win elections in order to get to make the rules" is un-democratic?

I didn't say it was un-democratic. I was trying to point out that democracy can be a bad thing when the majority decides to vote themselves power to the detriment of the minority.

When the minority is screwing the country, yes, screw the minority.

This is the system of governance we have. It functioned virtually without filibustering of nominees for two centuries. If you truly believe the problem here is the majority, you are far, far beyond reason.

Then we move to the next worse example; the majority defines what the minority is or is not doing.

This is how any parliamentary body on the planet works. If you are concerned about this from a constitutional perspective you do exactly what the founders did: separate legislative powers into equal chambers.

If you place constitutional requirements above a majority vote on a parliamentary body then the judiciary has to step in and enforce those requirements violating the separation of powers.

At this point you're just trolling.

Hmmm, I thought I was giving thoughtful responses to your posts. After all, you read my first response about screwing the minority and your answer seemed to suggest your are fully willing to do so. If you're willing to accept one terrible aspect of democracy you should be willing to embrace it all. Not mildly attacking someone for pointing out your potential defects. I'm only trying to help.

Now I think I'm trolling, but it's a natural response due to your posts.