Preparing for the battle ahead.

This is my view of the reality that confronts us:

1. Trump is the spear, not the one who wields it. The man's brain may have turned to tapioca pudding, but he can still follow orders. And, since he's the weapon, he's expendable. Putin can send him out to do the most outrageous things that would put any normal politician in dire peril, but Putin won't care if he goes down in flames, as long as chaos and destruction happens.

2. The Republican Party is filthy with Russian connections. It's my view that the Russians did not infiltrate the GOP surreptitiously, but just showed up at the front door with baskets full of dirty rubles and were welcomed into the club with open arms.

3. The media will not be reliable friends. Media ownership is heavily concentrated, making them especially vulnerable to bribes and threats. Anyone remember Campaign 2000, where Dubya got inexplicable kid-glove treatment while Al Gore got savaged. I sure do.

4. Nearly all of the people who currently support Trump are lost to us forever. They have drunk the Kool-Aid and there's no turning back for them. They only listen to Fox News (and various Foxoid outlets) which tells them what they are supposed to believe.

5. There is absolutely nothing the Republican Party and Trump will not do to stay in power. Erase, "But they wouldn't do that" from your vocabulary. Think Trump wouldn't issue blanket pardons to everyone he's ever been connected to? Think again.

6. The top levels of the Democratic Party will not be much help -- partly because they're stuck in the past and longing for the never-to-return days of comity and reaching across the aisle, and partly because any Democrat who becomes a nationally prominent figure will become a lightning rod to be viciously attacked by Fox, et al.

7. We can't put all our eggs in the Mueller investigation basket. Mueller can investigate, report, and prosecute. Trump can pardon. Congressional Republicans can ignore reports.

8. The war will be won by activism at the local level, by GOTV, entering Democratic candidates in every race, and making voting everywhere as accessible, reliable, accurate, and safe as possible in the face of Republican attacks. (Yes, safe. Look to item 5.)

9. And last, but not least, given that Puerto Ricans were left to die because Trump assumed they weren't white, and given that we're now putting thousands of children into what can only be described as concentration camps, and for a hundred other reasons we all know, it's time to start saying without apology:

TRUMP IS A NAZI!