I used to think that there might actually come a day when this country would get its politics together, wake up to what is being done to it politically, and unite behind the leadership of the Democratic party to throw out the fascists and set up an era of peace and restoration that would last at least as long as the Roosevelt restoration did. With November's election results, polling data that shows the Trump administration has lost way more ground than they can afford, the growing momentum behind the marches and protests under the "No Kings"banner, signs that the government shutdown was putting tremendous pressure on the GOP with some members of both the House and Senate ready to back down and make a deal, that old line political gamesmanship from out of a time when negotiation and give and take actually worked raised its ugly head among Senate Democrats and edged eight of them out of line into capitulation.

Instead of holding their ground on the one thing they had claimed was worth fighting to keep, they buckled under pressure from somewhere, and threw in the towel. I have to hold myself back from writing words that I might regret, feeling betrayed as I am right now, and lost. Trump, squirming and bucking and showing signs that he was going to have to find a way to cut and run without looking like he was cutting and running was given a beautifully wrapped gift by these eight Democrats who still, after nine years of his rhetoric and actions, don't seem to see that he's a threat to American democracy.

We've gotten so used to this modus operandi of our party leadership that the apologists and little Mary Sunshines were out early, trying to find ways to explain away what can't be explained away. The mixed messages are frustrating and baffling. Trump is, all at once, the greatest threat to democracy in all of American history, and yet, well, to these eight Senators, maybe they're not on board with that and he's just another corrupt Republican politician, oh, well, huh?

Everything that the marches and protests, and last Tuesday's elections, and the pressure on the Republicans because of the shutdown had gained up to this point has been lost. We've gone from heartfelt and enthusiastic talk just a week ago that the Senate might realistically be in play in the midterms, to greater uncertainty about even being able to win a House majority, after this fiasco. It's quite possible that we not only won't get control of either house in the mid-terms now, but we very likely may have just handed Trump a third term, or at least, helped the Republican nominee to the White House in 2028.