The Democrats have put themselves in a no-win situation. They are playing a game by the rules, against a team that actively defies the rules.

Democrats can continue to take the high road, and play by the rules, and get beat at every turn, and everything goes to hell.

Democrats could throw out the rule book, and lower themselves to their competitors' level, and everything goes to hell even faster.

Our entire democracy and Constitution is based upon the principle that people are honest, and that they have basic integrity, and pride in their name. At the time, a man's name was his most important asset.

That's why our democracy is falling apart. People without moral compass or integrity are doing and saying whatever they think they need to, to increase their power, without regard to whether it is actually true or not. And our systems are not designed for that. The penalty for failure to respond to a subpoena from the House of Representatives is not defined, because the framers never considered it a possibility: Honorable men would never do such a thing, and the dishonorable would soon be drummed out of their post due to embarrassment.

Republicans are immune to embarrassment, and have read these documents closely, and where a penalty is undefined, they simply ignore the intent, spirit, and wording of the law or regulation. After all, "... whatcha gonna do about it, Snowflake?"

In short: The bullies are running things. And until the bullies get scared, there's nothing genuinely good people can do (on either side of the aisle).

The only future I can see - and this scares the shit out of me - is a return of assassination. Americans used to kill politicians that acted in bad faith. I mean... how far can they push these nutballs with guns, before the nutcases start shooting people again? And not just randomly firing around a baseball diamond, but actual from-the-movies kind of crazy?

Republicans are bullies, pure and simple. Bullies never win in the end... and they often get killed before they reform. That's a scary future, for our republic.