While there was definitely a "leaning" left or right of the parties, there were once liberal R's and conservative D's in America.

Both parties also had moderates, who could actually vote across party lines based on a range of issues, both economic and social.

Since Nixon, and especially Reagan, the Repub party has been systematically radicalizing, purging their ranks of liberals and even moderates. We like to point at the Tea Party bullshit of the Obama Era as some kind of turning point, but in reality it was just an intensifying of an ongoing trend. Citing economic motives while spewing racist hatred is a conservative tradition nowadays. I mean, Reagan made his candidacy announcement in the Mississippi town where KKK assholes were lionized for killing civil rights workers.

Repubs have been trying for decades to decouple Wall Street from Main Street, and they have finally seemed to have succeeded. Trump's economy has favored the wealthy and the executive class, just like Repubs love to do, while job and wage growth have been stagnant for workers.

Unfortunately, while there are no moderate R's left, there are plenty of conservadems, at least economically. Some Repub pols like to talk a moderate game, but still tend to vote the party line.

Back in 2009, Dems enacted the ACA with no Repub help or support. Many of them paid by losing their seat. Now, I have always felt that they screwed themselves when they refused to really support what they did in the 2010 elections. But it is what is is. They did the right thing, regardless of personal risk.

This is another moment that requires courage. Yeah, they're afraid of losing their jobs, but we're seeing them line up to push the investigations and further an impeachment movement that might just bear fruit.

Repubs are in counterattack mode, and it will get brutal TBS, but we're seeing people lining up to do the right thing, again.

Some advantages we have/had over 1920s Germany:

We are older and have stronger and more well established institutions in place. The Weimar Republic was very new. Germany had a legislative body that had been in place since establishment in the 1870's. But the Kaiser still had significant real political power until the end of WWI. The Wermacht also had immense power and supported Hitler and the Nazis as RW power brokers. Germany also had the prototypical modern Military Industrial Complex.

Repubs have been eroding the institutions supporting our democracy for decades, as you have noticed. They deride it as the Deep State. The thing is, that deep state might be the only thing that can save us. How's that for irony?

I have no faith in Christianity. We do hear reports of more liberal minded Christians being on our side, but the more vocal ones are the authoritarians. With the exception of the Soviets, RW authoritarian regimes love their religions. The sheep look to the church for guidance and political leaders exploit that.

I personally know of no instance in history where a nation overcomes deep fascism from within and returns to real democracy. Fascist Spain survived until Franco died. His brand of fascism was perhaps slightly less brutal than Hitler, but not much. Generally, those countries have to be rescued from without. So we'd be looking at a Red Dawn scenario, I guess.

I still have hope, but it is fading.

That inflates their base. They can say that we're just a reflection of their hate for all things Dems. The could use the old "they're just like us" and discourage more of the both-siders out there from going out and voting.

People misunderstand the meaning of the "turn the other cheek" lesson of Bible fame. Certainly, Trump has never done that. But the bigger lesson is to not react the way they want us to react. It is not about ignoring transgressions, it is about controlling one's own actions. The important thing to do is to react smartly, to not just stoop to their level and respond with violence. That is what they want. It would justify their actions. Bullies always want their victims to react violently. They know that they will win more often than not if you engage them on their turf.

We need to "turn the other cheek" to Trump and overcome him with the full and righteous force of law and legislative power. That would be the biggest defeat of his sad, sick, bloated life, that he could not manipulate the legal system to his advantage.

Will we win? I certainly hope so, but I don't want to "win" by turning into a leftist version of the Trumplodytes. That would be a loss.

...in that about 1/3 of the population was for the revolution, about 1/3 was decidedly against it, and the other 1/3 were basically don't care, leave me the hell alone types.

The current 3 way split is not new in any sense. It's always been there. What has changed is that the 1/3 who just want to be left alone no longer have the frontier to flee to. The polarization we see, really isn't a 50/50 split and never has been. That narrative sells more papers and generates more clicks.

As for the citizenship test? The number of non recent immigrants who could pass it is pathetically small. It should be a requirement to get a High School diploma that students pass that. It's a pretty easy test for anyone who didn't sleep through American history.

The fact is that immigrants are usually the most patriotic in a truer sense because they chose to come here and work to become citizens. Far too many who were born here are infected with the malaise about it all you describe. What we end up with are political rallies that are about as substantive as local High School pep rallies before this weekend's game.

Several states have rather fairly determined districts. In my home state, WA, the 9 congressional districts are pretty reasonable. Just looking at the map, you can see how the uban/rural split works out. The district boundaries don't wander around like a snake pit.

The re-draw in Pennsylvania looks pretty reasonable, too.

It can be done. You can't totally eliminate gerrymandering, maybe, but you can mitigate it if you try. In WA, they have a 3-position panel that outlines the districts, 1 Dem, 1 Repub, and 1 judge (who is hopefully non-partisan).

Turning the Dem party into a bastardized "anti-Repub" party just furthers the evil. We need representation of the people. Even Dems should have to go out and present their platform and policies and get them elected in the court of public opinion.

Trump won in 2016 based on laser thin margins in 3 swing states based on massive voter suppression and electioneering efforts.

I leave out gerrymandering because that in itself would not have a huge effect on the Presidential race, though it would possibly steer people to the polls in partisan fashion.

Thankfully, the judicial system has maintained some resistance to the more egregious actions of the Trump admin. We've won a couple of the lawsuits around districting, and hopefully there will be more.

These recent indictments at least verify, legally, that there was Russian interference and meddling. Even Trump has been forced to admit that in tweets today. He's still denying the 'collusion' of course, but he's been pushed a step back. If this swings a million votes nationwide, it could have a significant effect. Even if it just softens some of the Trump support, it is a good thing.

We still outnumber the Deplorables, and we still have right and justice on our side.

GOTV!

The entire high-end real estate market and international finance needs purging. That's where the swamp gets filled from. Real estate is looking like a favorite way to launder money. American organized crime has well known connections to the building trades and has been a source of RW maligning of unions for decades. Perhaps much of that is deserved regarding those industries. We know that the Teamsters have had their brushes with the RICO laws in the past.

I don't want to start bashing unions, I support organized labor, but like any organization, the larger they get the more opportunities for corruption. My major concern right now is international finance and how Trump has used those channels to launder money for the Russians. The rest of this should come after that. I'm thinking of the Iceland scenario, where some bankers go to jail and the international banking community gets told to clean up their act or get out.

the difference between urban and rural thought processes worked. Imagine a movement to disallow horses in cities, and the outcry that would arise from their country bumpkin fellow citizens. Cutting down on the piles of horseshit would seem to be a good idea to a city-dweller, but to a ruralist it is not really thought of as a problem in need of a fix.

2016 was seen by many as a referendum on the urban/rural divide, and in many ways it was. But keep in mind, that is not a one way street. While urbanites may not understand what country folk are going through and the problems they have, it is also very true that "fixes" that work in small towns outside the "beltway" don't work in the urban/suburban environment either. Guns come to mind. The thought of having more than one gun per person in an area where the population density is lower than 10 people/square mile probably doesn't seem unreasonable. Having that many guns in a area with 100-1000 times that population density is a recipe for carnage.

Fact is, the party is changing. It may not be moving in a direction that some people like, but it is definitely changing.

And yes, in large part it started in earnest on Jan 21, 2017, when women across the country woke up to their own power and marched in the streets. They were joined by their husbands, brothers, uncles, and male friends, but it was a Woman's March in its inception and execution.

Following that, women across the country started investigating how to run for office, how to support others in that endeavor, or maybe just meeting together to show each other support. Networks are being pieced together, power blocs are being formed and Democrats across the country are getting together, including in many places where people didn't know they had kindred spirits so close to them.

Many of the folks I read here and elsewhere seem to want to specify how the Democratic Party needs to change. Everybody seems to have the answer. The truth is that the real answers need to bubble up from the grass roots. They say that "all politics are local." That's what we saw in Virginia and in New Jersey and elsewhere. We won't be successful if the DNC dictates how local candidates have to frame their campaigns in any but a general sense. I certainly don't care what someone thinks our national slogan for 2020 should be now. That will come with time.

We are in a revolution, already in progress, which is being decided organically from below. That's a good thing. As for 2020, I don't join into any speculative threads about that. I suspect, and rather hope that our candidate for Pres in 2020 is someone we don't suspect now, and maybe don't even know. Yes, the "guard" is changing right before our eyes. We can all vote and publish and work to effect the outcome, but it really isn't clear just yet what the near future will look like.