The unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court’s radical right-wing intellectual, opens up an enormous cornucopia of issues for Democrats and Republicans. Specifically, will President Obama nominate a successor knowing Republicans will delay and block it? And will the Republicans simply abdicate all legislative responsibility by refusing to even consider the nominee?

Maybe there’s a solution. Maybe two.

Here’s one: let the President nominate for the Scalia position Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader who has vowed the Senate will never take up the no nation while Obama is President. Wonder how he’s feel if he got the nomination?

And here’s two: simply continue with Scalia on the court. Sure he’s dead, but that would just place him at approximately the same intellectual level of Clarence Thomas.

You don’t think those are likely paths? Granted, you’re right, no doubt. So, how can we possibly proceed?

The answer seems to be that we can’t. The Republicans in Congress long ago ceded their interest in governing and government. They vowed, with considerable success, to oppose everything President Obama proposed. Of course they missed a few big ones, like Obamacare, too, thank goodness, though that didn’t stop them from wasting the taxpayer’s time and money trying to kill it more than 50 different times.

That gives us pretty dismal expectations for taking any action on a nominee. The hope is that the President’s eventual decision may lead at least to the opportunity to expose and embarrass the Republicans for what they have become: a Congress dominated by right-wingers who are unsuited to govern and who disdain the government.

Beyond that, the word “compromise” remains only a distant legacy, and for that sad fact we have some Democrats to blame as well. Very few legislators seem to have any national interest at heart any longer; their views remain parochial, centered merely on finding money for re-election, and while Republicans must accept most of the blame, there remains too much to go around everywhere.

It’s almost enough to make you think Justice Scalia would be turning over in his grave — at least if he hadn’t been responsible for some of the worst decisions handed down over the last 30 years, verdicts that have helped spread this plague of Republican nihilism.