Not Sophie's Choice

You could point out that the Republicans have adopted a policy of obstruction intended to destroy a centrist president based on the abuse of procedural rules and tried to overthrow Clinton, another centrist, through the abuse of legal niceties or you could insist that abuse of procedural issues is evidence of seriousness because, after all, nihilists actually mean what they say, or -- in any event, their willingness to act like nihilists is evidence of their authenticity. You might not like their method of killing random people to destabilize the system, but you have to admire their willingness to kill random people to destabilize the system.

Republicans are and have been for some time now dedicated to a strategy designed to ensure short term success but one which ultimately is destructive of democratic deliberation through, among other nonsense, a policy of the abuse of procedure and commitment to lying about everything. Yglesias chooses to valorize those who embrace short term destructive "success" over the long term stability.  Maybe it's just me but my preference is for long term stability in a system that ensures reasonable debate instead of wishing that my side was more like the nihilists.

UPDATE:
A rejection of nihilism

TP: So you haven’t signed Steve King’s discharge petition. Is that correct, or have you?
REICHERT: No, I haven’t. I’m one of a handful of Republicans. I don’t know, maybe five or three or four or five? Something like that.
TP: You’re in the slim minority.
REICHERT: I’m not going to sign it because it has no solutions really attached to it. It’s about repealing the entire bill.
TP: It’s for taking out — Steve King said on the radio the other day, he doesn’t want preexisting condition coverage, he doesn’t want that extended coverage on your parents’ plan, the dependent coverage that you just cited, he doesn’t want any of that.
REICHERT: Yeah. Well, everyone has their own approach and preexisting conditions is one of those I agree with.