You’ll be sorry. The warning was delivered in the measured, diplomatic cadences of the Senate rather than the taunting ones of the schoolyard. But there was no mistaking Mitch McConnell’s message.

Senate Democrats, led by then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, had just deployed the “nuclear option” to eliminate the filibuster for all executive and judicial nominations save the Supreme Court in order to confirm President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. In late 2013, McConnell rose to address the chamber and cautioned his counterparts across the aisle that their action was foolhardy and shortsighted. “You’ll regret this, and you might regret it even sooner than you might think,” he predicted.