That is exactly what “spirit” or “substance” would argue; that if they refuse to debate/vote on the nomination, it passes because otherwise we don’t have a supreme court.
However, that is not what the “letter” or “form” of the law says which is that consent of Congress is necessary, period, no exceptions. The supreme court must exist under the constitution, but the number of judges is not set. This means that SCOTUS could have as little as 1 judge sitting and it would still be operating “correctly” in theory. Just like a filibuster, this means that no debate or floor discussion is necessary; Congress gets to choose its rules and its agenda and can refuse to do its implied duty (such as pass a functioning budget; eg the sequester).
The supposed fix to this is that in theory, no one would vote to re-elect politicians that intentionally break the government to serve their own ends. Again, in practice, people are so loyal to their agendas, they do not care (or want!) that their elected officials are intentionally disabling the president and damaging the government.
That’s how the system is supposed to “work”!
All good reasons not to try and use external information or the argument of pragmatism to argue for/against a rule.