To the glee of his conservative base and to the consternation of his progressive opponents, President Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett for a seat on the United States Supreme Court. My own preference, which was shared by others, such as Peggy Noonan, was to delay a vote on the nominee until after the election. But the course of events has moved rapidly in the other direction, and a no-holds-barred nomination fight is now upon us.

In earlier times, Judge Barrett’s consistent level of high performance would have led to confirmation by acclamation under the now-disregarded practice of evaluating a judge’s legal understanding and technical competence, independent of her political orientation. But these are not normal times. Indeed, the current fight resembles the appointment of John Marshall, our greatest chief justice, to the Supreme Court by President John Adams on March 3, 1801, the day before Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president.

Senator Mitch McConnell’s prompt announcement that the president would move forward with the nomination rests on the fact that McConnell had sufficient votes in his pocket. McConnell and Trump may think that they will gain a powerful political advantage by forcing the Democrats into a two-pronged strategy of massive resistance. The first is an all-out attack on Barrett for her religious associations, most notably her membership in People of Praise, a predominantly Roman Catholic faith community formed in 1971. The second is an institutional challenge, represented by Senator Elizabeth Warren’s adamant refusal to confirm a new Supreme Court justice until after inauguration on January 20, 2021. The Democratic playbook threatens to pack the Supreme Court if Barrett is confirmed, or to limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court so that it could not review Biden administration proposals, like implementing the Green New Deal or increasing the rights and power of unions. Progressives by and large are fearful of judicial intervention by a conservative court that would challenge their culture war victories, upset their efforts to reshape the economy from top to bottom, and remake the regulatory world to be friendlier to business.