First, a reminder. Here's what the nuclear option really is. Changing the Senate rules requires a 2/3 supermajority. The formal rules of the Senate say that after debate ends via a "cloture" vote, the Senate is supposed to have 30 more hours of debate allowable. The minority, while they can't block a confirmation after cloture is invoked, can force the use of those 30 hours to prevent moving on to the next confirmation, and put limits on the number of judges confirmed. That's what the rules say.
However, the nuclear option goes as follows. The majority party claims that that's not what the rules say, and they can make the rules say whatever they want because they have more votes, and if you don't like it, tough shit. It takes 2/3 to change the rules, but only 51 to ignore the rules completely. If the majority wants to say that 30=2, then they might create a mathematical system in which everything goes haywire, but who's gonna stop them? Nope. The rules may "say" 30 hours, but we say that they really say 2 hours in the super-secret golden tablets that only we can read, and we have the votes, so bite me. Got it? That's the nuclear option. Following the rules is a mug's game.
OK, that's done. McConnell said he wanted judges confirmed faster. So, more Republican judges. For now. Here's what you need to know.
Don't let people get the story wrong. The most common telling is that the Democrats went nuclear first. Sort of. As long as context is a thing as meaningless as facts to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Why did Reid use the nuclear option? McConnell announced a Republican blockade of the DC Circuit Court. That's the second-most important court in the country. McConnell, while in the minority, claimed that Obama shouldn't be allowed to fill any vacancies there... 'cuz. Democrats either had to cede control of the DC Circuit entirely, or be the first to press the button. They chose door number 2. Why did McConnell do it? The answer then, and the answer I gave, was that he wanted the nuclear option blamed on the Democrats.
And every time you read a story blaming the post-nuclear Senate on the Democrats-- a thing I keep reading-- you are seeing the fruits of McConnell's DC Circuit blockade. Remember why that happened.
Next, remember the "veil of ignorance." John Rawls. This is a sort of antidote to Miles's law. Imagine you don't know whether you are in the majority or the minority. What power structure would you create? That's the issue of the Senate. With Obama, the left hated the filibuster, and tried to hang onto that filibuster-hatred for a long time. So... do you still hate it, with Trump and the GOP? The problem with procedural preferences is that if you aren't willing to give a shitload of power to someone like Trump, you have to accept limits on your own. Veil of ignorance.