The Sovietization of American Politics, by Richard Fernandez.

The Sovietization of Washington politics is nearly complete.  Strong arm rule, political surveillance and the show trial threatens to replace the orderly alternation at power which characterized elective government. …

Hope looks like it just left town. To boot there are now allegations that Susan Rice actively requested the “unmasking” of Trump campaign and transition official’s names from intelligence reports.  That makes a “dual track investigation” inevitable according to law professor William Jacobson.  “I don’t see how the Obama administration does not now become a target of congressional investigation after this revelation.”

Both sides are in a race to see who can jail or politically cripple the other side first.  Although the pawns will fall first the game won’t end until checkmate traps one of the two rival kings.

No one is backing down, certainly not the Democrats.  “Why is Trump flailing?” writes Greg Sargent in the Washington Post, “because Americans hate his agenda, and it’s based on lies” .  Uncompromising stands are nothing new for the Democratic party.  The difference is that this time the Republicans aren’t giving way.

The strange guy with orange complexion has put the progressives out of reckoning by being just as unreasonable as the conservatives thought the liberals were.  The strategy of “by any means necessary”, so effective when the Democrats enjoyed a monopoly on its use is now transformed into a pact of mutually assured destruction as the other side adopts similar methods.

Obama and Trump are in a game of chicken that neither seems ready to abandon. …

At last, the right in the US fights instead of being patsies. Shame the left brought the political standards so low from about 2000 on.