As John McCain was nearing the end of his Senate career, he endured (not for the first time) outrageous outrage from the newly Trump-compliant GOP for voting against the use of a shady parliamentary maneuver to ram an otherwise desirable bill through Congress.

The Republicans found a way to pursue their shenanigans without McCain’s vote, and now they reap the predictable (and predicted) consequences. The Senate parliamentarian is currently ruling Democratic maneuvers in-bounds in part because Republicans used similar maneuvers.

Personally, I never liked McCain, but I wrote this when he cast his vote:

I can recall how angry we on the Right were when Obamacare was rammed through using procedural shenanigans. Did we object because making law by shenanigans is bad, or because it was the other side doing it?

The descent of the American constitutional order into chaos requires that at some point one side refuse to use the other side’s tactics. The GOP in general gets no points for this, because the GOP in general has proven itself willing to stoop as low as any Democrat. The GOP and Trump have earned each other.

McCain, however, gets to retire with honor. Well done.

I’ll admit that in the years since, I have sometimes thought about that post and wondered whether I overdid it. This was, after all, a procedural nicety.

But right now, I bet the GOP wishes it had shown more restraint, just as the Democrats wish they hadn’t eliminated the use of the filibuster for judicial nominations. What, after all, did Congress pass during the Trump years that was worth the current progressive legislative deluge?

Where does it end?