Sorry to respond so abstractly, but, I think the main lesson the modern political era has is: be a tactician, not a strategist.
A strategist may plan twelve moves ahead, but has a huge Achilles heel. They won’t move until they are sure there is a winning path.
A tactician weighs the costs and benefits of acting in the moment, and acts in a way that improves position even without having a clear path to victory.
Putin is a tactician. For example, he flooded the US with propaganda and leaked emails starting in 2015 to do nothing except destabilize an adversary, kept it up as a cheap side-bet, and ended up getting two Trump terms in return. He attacked Ukraine without a clear plan, and will probably end up (I hope not, but probably - in conjunction with the last sentence) with semi-legitimized control of Donbas and Luhansk.
Republicans are tacticians. They kept attacking “Obamacare” despite healthcare being a top issue with voters and offering no alternative, and eventually the weight of their attacks made it so unpopular, voters were voting in politicians promising to remove it, despite that it would remove their own healthcare. They have been tacticians for a years with voter suppression (they succeeded in getting many state governments, the House, and so on). Stephen Miller is a tactician, and we saw it in how he kept pushing ICE’s unconstitutional policies.
The point is that each move we make, even without a clear strategy to the final goal, itself changes the reality on the ground. And tacticians are winning because their maneuvers take weeks, each time a free swing and way of moving the reality, the Overton windows, a little closer to their goal. If they fail, they have five other plans brewing, all free swings. Meanwhile, strategists’ maneuvers take years to show any effect. No long-term strategy adapts fast enough to counter those tactics.
We have become the stereotype of that republican quote: They act, we react; and while we react, they act again, changing the reality and killing our still-gestating plans.
So I’d humbly argue: The only way out of this is not to wait until 2028 (2029, actually, before a new president is hypothetically seated). It’s to act, now, using every legal tool we have, even if we don’t know the full path to victory.
There are legal tools besides impeachment, but like I say, it’s not a matter of not knowing the full path to victory when it comes to impeachment, there literally is no path to victory. Plus the legal tools are currently controlled by the opposition.
If 2026 goes the way we expect, the 50% majority in the House will be easy enough.
If we want impeachment, we have to run on it now. Get No Kings to swing the Senate races.
Right now it’s 53 Republican, 45 Democratic, 2 Independent (caucusing with Democrats).
33 Senate seats are up for re-election in '26, we need to flip 22 seats to win impeachment, maybe only 20 if Collins and Murkowski are willing to play ball. 4 seats will flip control, but control is not enough to impeach.
If we can’t get 20-22 Senate seats, there is no point pushing impeachment. It only has the desired effect of making the Democrats look bad and that hurts them in the run up to '28.
Sorry to respond so abstractly, but, I think the main lesson the modern political era has is: be a tactician, not a strategist.
A strategist may plan twelve moves ahead, but has a huge Achilles heel. They won’t move until they are sure there is a winning path.
A tactician weighs the costs and benefits of acting in the moment, and acts in a way that improves position even without having a clear path to victory.
Putin is a tactician. For example, he flooded the US with propaganda and leaked emails starting in 2015 to do nothing except destabilize an adversary, kept it up as a cheap side-bet, and ended up getting two Trump terms in return. He attacked Ukraine without a clear plan, and will probably end up (I hope not, but probably - in conjunction with the last sentence) with semi-legitimized control of Donbas and Luhansk.
Republicans are tacticians. They kept attacking “Obamacare” despite healthcare being a top issue with voters and offering no alternative, and eventually the weight of their attacks made it so unpopular, voters were voting in politicians promising to remove it, despite that it would remove their own healthcare. They have been tacticians for a years with voter suppression (they succeeded in getting many state governments, the House, and so on). Stephen Miller is a tactician, and we saw it in how he kept pushing ICE’s unconstitutional policies.
The point is that each move we make, even without a clear strategy to the final goal, itself changes the reality on the ground. And tacticians are winning because their maneuvers take weeks, each time a free swing and way of moving the reality, the Overton windows, a little closer to their goal. If they fail, they have five other plans brewing, all free swings. Meanwhile, strategists’ maneuvers take years to show any effect. No long-term strategy adapts fast enough to counter those tactics.
We have become the stereotype of that republican quote: They act, we react; and while we react, they act again, changing the reality and killing our still-gestating plans.
So I’d humbly argue: The only way out of this is not to wait until 2028 (2029, actually, before a new president is hypothetically seated). It’s to act, now, using every legal tool we have, even if we don’t know the full path to victory.
There are legal tools besides impeachment, but like I say, it’s not a matter of not knowing the full path to victory when it comes to impeachment, there literally is no path to victory. Plus the legal tools are currently controlled by the opposition.
If 2026 goes the way we expect, the 50% majority in the House will be easy enough.
If we want impeachment, we have to run on it now. Get No Kings to swing the Senate races.
Right now it’s 53 Republican, 45 Democratic, 2 Independent (caucusing with Democrats).
33 Senate seats are up for re-election in '26, we need to flip 22 seats to win impeachment, maybe only 20 if Collins and Murkowski are willing to play ball. 4 seats will flip control, but control is not enough to impeach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_Senate_elections
If we can’t get 20-22 Senate seats, there is no point pushing impeachment. It only has the desired effect of making the Democrats look bad and that hurts them in the run up to '28.