Guess when break over repubs will crank up "investigate the investigators" train,

all the while bonespurs and company are doing damn little to protect against foreign cyber/social attack.

When it's so common for people to seek out opinions that confirm their preconceived biases, I put little stock in the idea that Russian efforts changed the minds of many; perhaps none at all.

Like Bob Woodward?

I think this whole mess is the greatest distraction of all time. Trump is the master of misdirection and the shell game. We have spent two years and a few months wondering and chasing the Russians election hacking and now some folks want to focus on impeachment. So the House probably has the votes, the Senate probably not and in 9 or ten months or a year from now if the impeachment fails the election in 2020 is only 6 months away and we are still being distracted by chasing bad guys.

If the economy stays hot and unemployment numbers good, every one of the Trump voters from last time will vote the same and the Democratic party will not have even organized a good campaign. Trump is past halfway thru his 1st term and a lot of folks are falling for the misdirection and the shell games over and over. Before the last election I really thought the GOP was totally doomed and would never win another presidency, now I sort of wonder if the Dems are more broken than the GOP.

I have no answers what so ever, but I just shake my head at my friends that seem bogged down into following the distractions for weeks, months and years.

Both parties are racing against their own doom, both driven by demographics.

For the GOP, they're racing against ever growing fiscal deficits and, if they hope to survive, they'll have to jettison (or at least rework) their old trope about fiscal conservatism.

For the Democrats, they're racing against an aging population and the conservative shift that tends to happen as people age. Want to know what I'm talking about? Take a look at Collier County Florida. Huge retirement area. Almost nobody who lives in Collier County is "from" Florida. The number of NY, CT, and IL license plates you see in Collier County is astonishing and that's very representative of where those people spent most of their lives. Most of the retirees that live there were Democrats at some point in their life but look how they voted in 2016: solid red.

The Republicans, in many ways, are lucky with Trump: worst case scenario they can just use him as a scapegoat. An "outsider" and the result of "populism". While the Republicans face an identity crisis, it's manageable: none of the positions of the GOP platform really conflict with one another and, again, if something goes wrong they can just blame Trump. Or Mueller. Or somebody.

The Democrats have their own identity crisis but it's far, far worse. Many positions for the Democrats do in fact conflict. Take, for example, the notion that the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Within the Democratic Party, you could get a lot of people to say that (let's say 90%). However, there's a sizable segment within the Democratic Party that wants to talk about reparations (call it 5-10%). Those people want policies and a candidate that are both unacceptable to 85% of the rest of the Party. Similar phenomenon with identity politics (gender and all that... stuff). Similar phenomenon with climate change. To make things even worse, politicians like Nancy Pelosi, who are trying to keep the Democratic Party somewhere near the center in practice, are seen as a part of the "establishment".

In 2016 the assumption was that anyone could beat Trump and... hey, they had the anointed one so it was going to be a landslide. In 2020, the risk is that the Democratic Party spends itself during the primary. Lots of candidates will raise and spend money during the primary in hopes of making it into the general election. There will be lots of shouting. Lots of crazy ideas. Lots of virtue signaling. But most importantly, lots of time, money, and resources will be spent. Like all things finite, whatever is expended in the primary cannot be spent in the general election.

Both parties are racing against their own doom, both driven by demographics.

For the GOP, they're racing against ever growing fiscal deficits and, if they hope to survive, they'll have to jettison (or at least rework) their old trope about fiscal conservatism.

For the Democrats, they're racing against an aging population and the conservative shift that tends to happen as people age. Want to know what I'm talking about? Take a look at Collier County Florida. Huge retirement area. Almost nobody who lives in Collier County is "from" Florida. The number of NY, CT, and IL license plates you see in Collier County is astonishing and that's very representative of where those people spent most of their lives. Most of the retirees that live there were Democrats at some point in their life but look how they voted in 2016: solid red.

The Republicans, in many ways, are lucky with Trump: worst case scenario they can just use him as a scapegoat. An "outsider" and the result of "populism". While the Republicans face an identity crisis, it's manageable: none of the positions of the GOP platform really conflict with one another and, again, if something goes wrong they can just blame Trump. Or Mueller. Or somebody.

The Democrats have their own identity crisis but it's far, far worse. Many positions for the Democrats do in fact conflict. Take, for example, the notion that the wealthy should pay more in taxes. Within the Democratic Party, you could get a lot of people to say that (let's say 90%). However, there's a sizable segment within the Democratic Party that wants to talk about reparations (call it 5-10%). Those people want policies and a candidate that are both unacceptable to 85% of the rest of the Party. Similar phenomenon with identity politics (gender and all that... stuff). Similar phenomenon with climate change. To make things even worse, politicians like Nancy Pelosi, who are trying to keep the Democratic Party somewhere near the center in practice, are seen as a part of the "establishment".

In 2016 the assumption was that anyone could beat Trump and... hey, they had the anointed one so it was going to be a landslide. In 2020, the risk is that the Democratic Party spends itself during the primary. Lots of candidates will raise and spend money during the primary in hopes of making it into the general election. There will be lots of shouting. Lots of crazy ideas. Lots of virtue signaling. But most importantly, lots of time, money, and resources will be spent. Like all things finite, whatever is expended in the primary cannot be spent in the general election.

For the Democrats, they're racing against an aging population and the conservative shift that tends to happen as people age. Want to know what I'm talking about? Take a look at Collier County Florida. Huge retirement area. Almost nobody who lives in Collier County is "from" Florida. The number of NY, CT, and IL license plates you see in Collier County is astonishing and that's very representative of where those people spent most of their lives. Most of the retirees that live there were Democrats at some point in their life but look how they voted in 2016: solid red.

The Democrats have their own identity crisis but it's far, far worse. Many positions for the Democrats do in fact conflict.