How do you fight back? Al Franken was fighting back -- look what we did to him. How do you play this game?

Great analogy, by the way. This is exactly what is happening. I don't suggest we play dirty, but I wish we knew how to play smart.

Al Franken was a good Senator, but he's not indispensible.

What did I miss? I'm pretty sure ONLY Al Franken was pushed to resign last week rather than allow him to go through an ethics investigation (due process).

The assertion that Fanken's departure will dampen turnout is baseless.

...voted for Hillary Clinton
...voted for Mark Dayton
...voted for Klobuchar and Franken

will vote for a Democratic Senator.

That puts another Democratically-held senate seat up for grabs in a purple state when it would have been safely held for three more years. Minnesota used to be one of the most reliably democratic states for years, but that's all changed. With a little help from Putin again, what are the chances of the voting results being unmolested?

I can't give details, by I trust my source.

We don't. And the last few leaders of the party deluded themselves into thinking that if we mimic the GOP by attacking and being mean we would win more elections. Instead, that drives people away from the polls, saying both sides are the same. Come up with a short, clear and cogent message and stick to it. And work as a team instead of a circular firing squad, a party of inclusiveness must be able to tolerate variation in beliefs within a larger vision

And conservatives set in their brain-locked direction.

While that is a broad brush, people that are willing to entertain different viewpoints tend to gravitate to the Democratic party.

Others tend to gravitate to extremism in defense of their view, and if they are conniving politically-motivated, will use the 'Uglican party as a platform for their positions (generally conservative, misogynist, racial, isolationist.)

that the blue players and spectators spent countless hours complaining to each other online about how the game was going, but that's all they did.

but don't discount the millions of Americans who have marched and protested this year.

though it was a good thing, it didn't work. The game hasn't changed at all.

When one thing doesn't work, something else needs to be tried.

I share your frustration. TOTALLY! Heck, I'm in my mid-60s now and I've been an activist for awhile, and I remain frustrated. And I went to the Women's March, in L.A. that day. trump is still there, and still has way too many allies despite his lousy decisions and lousy numbers. We never did get dubya impeached, hard as I tried. Even from here I tried. And it can be almost desperately dispiriting.

I have MSNBC on in the background and heard Dem Congressman John Garamendi say "all these things tied together. It's about power". He was specifically talking about the growing efforts to kneecap Robert Mueller, but I think it applies as a motivator. That's what WE need. In MANY ways!
- Tying all these things together on the trump/Russia front is making it more clear by the day how deeply guilty they all are, INCLUDING donald senior. And the more these dots are connected, the more power WE will have at our backs (to, say, flip enough districts from coast to coast to take back the House next year which would make impeachment far more likely). It's also eating away, day by day, on the GOP talking point that there's nothing to see here.
- Tying all these things together ALSO means aggressive politics, using this GOP corruption contamination from trump/Russia AND the the Roy Moore contamination (plus trump's own) that they're now the Grand Old Pedophiles. They can NO LONGER claim the "moral high ground." Which can very well lead to taking back the House, AND the Senate.
- Tying all these things together when you think of all the ways to be an activist. This is cumulative stuff. The first cancer cell doesn't kill you. Neither does the tenth or the thousandth. Takes millions. Millions of them take you down, usually because they've multiplied and spread, attacking from numerous different parts of the body, metastasizing through the bloodstream, into the liver, kidneys, bone marrow, and you're sunk. They wind up working together, ganging up on you, and they just overrun and overpower everything, and you're screwed. It's a cumulative effect that screws you.

So yeah. Seems to me we need to make sure there's a cumulative EVERYTHING. Yeah, sure the next letter-to-the-editor is gonna be THE magic one that just fixes everything (from your post farther downthread). No, it probably won't. But it'll count for something. It'll be one more voice speaking up for OUR side. Hell, we've got a SECOND full-time, full-speed-ahead cable network, Sinclair Broadcasting, warming up in the bullpen to take over local TV news all over the country with its merger with Tribune Broadcasting. So that's Pox Noise Plus One. AND all the hate radio. AND all the sideshows and sidecars and talking heads and opinionistas and fly-by-night "news" operations that are marching in formation. SOMEBODY'S gotta speak up. Somebody's gotta tie all these things together for the public. After all, it might only take ONE letter-to-the-editor that winds up, by accident, being read by somebody who usually gets their "news" only from Pox Noise and limbaugh. What if it were enough, or YOU said something in such a way, unique to you, that actually hits home with that reader? And as far as whether that one letter-to-the-editor tips the scale or not, it wasn't till the seventh accuser came forward that the tide turned on Al Franken. When things stood at six, he still had a Senate ethics hearing ahead of him - that he himself suggested.

I'm sorry for the lengthy rant, but I wanted to add this reminder. I wrote about it long ago here on DU. I learned this from my years in local and network radio, and rock stations - which had request lines. Why do they bother with request lines? Because they want to know what their listeners want to hear, and this is direct delivery of that message. The request line operators keep a running tally of who called for what song. And why is that considered valid input? Because of how a single call into a request line is interpreted. That ONE call is regarded as representative of how multiples of other listeners feel. The same listener who takes the time to call in (on active mode) to request Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran or Logic or "Stairway to Heaven" represents others who want to hear that same stuff too (the passives), but they DIDN'T call in, maybe because they were working, in a meeting, picking the kids up, weren't near their phone, didn't feel like it, or didn't think it'd make any difference. Depending on market size, that multiple could be one representing ten, or 100, or 1,000, or more. I once got called by the Gallup pollsters, and was told that I wound up speaking for 50,000 people, because that's the representational ratio they used. That's how your one little voice can do some perception management. YOU can be presume to represent ten others, or 100 others, or more, depending on the readership.

So EVERY LITTLE BIT counts. And seems to me you have to think of these larger long-range things to motivate you, and as we're suffocating in the bad air of this GOP smoke machine, it's HARD!!! Don't I know it! As I noted farther up, I never did get bush/cheney impeached and removed, hard as I tried, and as much time as I put into it (which was a lot)! Yeah, it's slow. So were the glaciers. But they sure had an impact.

and critique the blue team, and speculate about how they might alter their strategy to play more effectively, they get accused of disloyalty, and of attacking the blue team, even getting blamed for their losses, and ultimately get driven out of the discussion. The fans that remain in the discussion create a narrative that says that the blue team doesn't need to reexamine its strategy, or alter its tactics, they just need better and more loyal fans.

I participate in a discussion and am told I'm talking too much.

I'm loyal to democracy not to Kirsten. What our senators did only strengthens the Republicans. I'd like to see them reverse course before it's too late.

so the criticism is about how they should still be able to win while still following the rules while the Red Team does not. This point is not really good to make in this analogy, as there is no "improvement" that will help if the Red Team does not follow the rules.

Otherwise may as well call it quits.

and sabotage and espionage and deception and all the nastiness of war

Eventually, reason and well-crafted op-eds won the day. We just need to wait it out...

Sure.

and Congress will pass single payer, the ERA and a $15 minimum wage.

It's coming any day now. If I just write one more thoughtful letter to the editor, I know things will change.

the thingy?

Saying it will force the red team to behave better.

No war he's ever been fought "by the rules".

The battles for civil rights, LGBTQ rights, universal suffrage, union rights---none were accomplished without occasional transgressions that, while they were "not nice", "rude" or even ILLEGAL, were thought necessary by people we now recognize as heroes.

We're fighting for our country, the other side threw the rule book in the trash & we kicked one of our best bulldogs out of the ring. Someone better be willing to stand up & throw some dirt in their eyes or we're toast.

of our current state of affairs in the United States

Before I write more, Hi John Harbaugh!!!!

Republicans lie and cheat, the Patriots win by being more prepared than their opponent. The last Super Bowl is an example. The Patriots guessed that a Super Bowl game will be a struggle where the fittest team likely wins, so they worked endurance training into their regimine toward the end of their regular season, and that paid off in the SB when Atlanta ran out of gas.

The Patriots play dirty and receive preferential treatment from the NFL in the form of minimal penalties or repercussions.

These facts are not mutually exclusive.

Filming other teams was allowed when they did it.

Footballs lose inflation in cold rainy weather, that is a natural fact. Why did the NFL destroy the game ball inflation data that it took for a season after fining the Patriots? You know what my guess is? The data would have caused logistical issues for the NFL and required that they keep balls in special, climate controlled containers on the sidelines and use balls for only a few minutes at a time during games.

Tell me how the Patriots cheat. Getting minimal penalties is about preparation, like having offensive linemen line up right so that one does not lineup in the backfield on plays, or setting pick within the allowed band. Great teams prepare their players to get few penalties, losing teams rack up penalties.

wasn't legal. And let's not get into the fairly obviously not in line with the spirit of the salary cap arrangement with Tom Brady's fraudulent body guru/business partner to give reduced rent and sickening legitimacy to a snake oil salesman. Concussion proofing water my ass. It's a shame that Tom Brady is more than happy to sell actively harmful medical advice along side the same scumbag who sold millions of dollars worth of phony medicine to people dying of cancer and such.

The Patriots are a worthless classless organization that cheats to "win". They are nothing more than Lance Armstrong. Good perhaps, but can't actually be called winners since they didn't do so without cheating repeatedly.

BTW, it is called a Law for a good reason. Educate your self on the law. But to make things short, volume/pressure product is directly proportional to temperature at constant mass. In cold temperatures, balls deflate because the Volume/pressure product decreases, so footballs will look and feel softer.

In many cases, the refs are actually the Red team's coaches--Red campaign chairs and other higher-ups in campaigns are also the head election officials.

Voter suppression and gerrymandering, the two things keeping the Republicans in the majority.

And they can't even roll the ball across their finish line on one piece of legislation.

He knocks all the pieces off, shits on the board and then struts around claiming he won.

A fan of the Red Team points to one of the very best players on the Blue Team and claims they saw them break a rule. Coach of the blue team turns to the player and says, "Sorry, rules are rules. You're off the team!" "But, coach? Can't I explain? Can't I have a hearing or something?" "Nope! I won't have rule breakers on my team! We're the good guys! We play by the rules! We won't stoop to their level." Protests from fans and other players pointing to the Red Team glaring at them with their weapons at the ready fails to sway him. He thinks maybe then the Red Team will start playing fair. Besides, Coach has principles!

When we regain power, then we re-establish or pass legislation that codifies consequences for violations of the rules.

But it makes no sense for us to continue to get hammered when the other side actively flaunts its disdain for rules and their followers admire them for it.

Great analogy, by the way.