Amy Klobuchar

Their blazers are bright, but their futures are not. Elite women Democrats have faced a brutal reckoning over the past five years. It seemed, as Barack Obama might have put it, that the arc of history was bending in their direction. Half the electorate are female, and feminist identity politics seemed the natural destination for America’s progressive party. It hasn’t worked out that way. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton signaled the beginning of the end for the Pantsuit Nation™. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the DC media bubble crowned her successor to Barack Obama’s Democratic party and a shoo-in for the presidency. The American electorate disagreed.

The single most important thing to understand about the Senate impeachment trial is that it is all for show, meant to influence the November election. Yes, the House managers and president’s attorney will present formal arguments to the Senate. The real argument, though, is intended for the public in 10 months. It always has been. That argument will play out in the media and on the campaign trail.There are three sets of elections that matter: presidential ballots in six or seven contested states (the industrial Midwest, Florida, and a few others), Senate ballots in Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Iowa and North Carolina (where Republican incumbents are vulnerable), and about 30 Democratic House members in red districts, whose fate will decide the next Speaker.

It may be only the third time in American history the president has been impeached but it’s the first time no one gives a damn, not even the Democratic party itself. If that preamble didn’t perfectly set the tone for the last Democratic debate of the decade, a bubbling labor union dispute that nearly shut down the event at Loyola Marymount University this week in Los Angeles, certainly did. Couple that with the troublemakers who vandalized the LMU hillside monogram with large ‘Trump 2020’ letters, visible from the busy Pacific Coast Highway.Also ahead of the debate, a mopey splash on CNN’s front page, one of two networks to broadcast it, bemoaned ‘the smallest and least diverse Democrat debate.

How do you know Elizabeth Warren is the Democratic front-runner? Well, the polls give you a clue. But the more significant evidence is that the other presidential candidates went for her at the CNN debate last night. When they turn on you like that, it means you are winning. Warren was attacked by various candidates — by Pete Buttigieg and by Amy Klobuchar most effectively. She wobbled a bit, especially on her vague Medicare plans, but she didn’t falter. It’s clear that she isn’t the devastatingly brilliant candidate establishment progressives so want her to be. She sounds a bit hurt and feeble when attacked: how will she cope with 2020?

Who was the last person you felt genuinely sorry for? A newly unemployed blue-collar worker who’s been ‘innovated’ out of a job by mechanization, perhaps. Or that elderly widower in an old folks’ home whose family never seems to visit. Maybe even a single mother in the Rust Belt, trapped in the bleak throes of opioid addiction. There’s enough suffering in this country to go around – it’s not hard to pick someone. Then ask yourself this: what about the real victims? Those struggling through the hardship of sleepless nights and non-stop travel, met with at best indifference, at worst disdain wherever they go. When have you given them a moment’s thought?

Abortion promises to be a major talking point in 2020. While President Trump has pointedly condemned legislation allowing late-term abortion, his Democratic opponents refuse to name any limits on abortion, except to say 'it’s a decision the woman makes.' They also happen to have a monetary relationship with the nation’s largest abortion provider. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), 12 Democrats looking to secure the nomination in 2020 have received a combined $191,300 since 1990 from Planned Parenthood while serving as federal candidates. Here’s the breakdown of funding given by Planned Parenthood to Democrats eyeing 2020, listed by candidate and year: Sen.

‘Charlottesville, Virginia is home to the author of one of the great documents in human history. We know it by heart,’ says a freshly sanded Joe Biden over swooping strings, in tight focus and excruciating high-definition. As the camera cuts closer, you can just about notice his watery eyes flicking from one side of the autocue to the other. The former vice president is taking up arms in ‘the battle for the soul of America’, and he’s doing it on YouTube. The build-up to elections used to center upon television air-time: CNN town halls, fierce attack ads, appearances on late-night talk shows. But the humanoid sociopaths over in Silicon Valley changed all that in the Obama era. Now the key battleground is social media, and the hunt is on for a viral moment.

As Donald Trump closed in the Republican nomination in 2016, pundits grasped for explanations. The Republican field was too crowded – but then, why should a crowded field help Trump rather than some other candidate? Trump hogged the limelight, then: he was a celebrity with an unfair advantage right from the start, and the media lavished undue attention on him. Of course, all of that attention was negative, but it’s true that Trump’s name and persona dominated the race almost from the minute he got into it. Trump’s celebrity gave him an opportunity, but he made the most of it, speaking many truths about American life and politics that professional politicians dared not utter.