The Democrats have it good right now.

Don’t get me wrong; they are in utter turmoil because they hate their president and find themselves in the minority in D.C. However, they have a convenient, two-fold smokescreen: President Donald J. Trump, and the mainstream media.

With those barriers in place, they are free to go to war with each other, all while keeping it mostly under wraps. They’re confident that the president, who gets enough press on his own, will help keep the spotlight off of them. The media, obsessed with fake news and feeling sudden inspiration to pursue “journalistic integrity”, is only happy to comply.

This leaves the Left with enough cover to quietly implode. They can’t decide where to focus their hatred first. On Republicans for choosing Trump, or on themselves for selecting Hillary. That’s quite a tough call.

Impeachment 

The rush to scream “impeach!!” must have felt good at the very beginning of Trump’s administration, which, if you remember, only began last month. Now that talk is reined in by the diminished heads of the party, such as House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. The volume on that talk is being turned down, but not in an effort to do what’s right. Instead, it’s an attempt to save the fractured, scattered, tattered Democrat party.

Politico reports, emphasis mine:

Just a month into Donald Trump’s presidency, Democratic Party leaders are trying to rein in the talk of impeachment that’s animating the grass roots…

Democratic officials in Republican-dominated Washington view the entire subject as a trap, a premature discussion that could backfire in spectacular fashion by making the party appear too overzealous in its opposition to Trump. Worse, they fear, it could harden Republican support for the president by handing his party significant fundraising and political ammunition when the chances of success for an early impeachment push are remote, at best.

The problem for party lawmakers is that the hard-to-placate Democratic base has assumed a stop-Trump-at-all-costs posture.

When the base and the party leadership are at odds, you are left with the 2016 Election. I recall that cycle didn’t turn out so well for the Democrats.

2018 Midterm Elections

For many on the Left, the shiny object in the distance, which provides a glimmer of much-needed hope, is the 2018 midterm elections. Yes, it seems a long way off, but Democrats need something to propel them through their everyday Trump-is-actually-the-president depression.

McClatchyDC reports:

Frustrated by the party’s performance on Capitol Hill and emboldened by the mass protests against President Donald Trump, a coalition of progressive groups say they are open to supporting primary challengers next year against Democratic members of the House and Senate – even if many inside the party believe that intra-party races might ultimately only help the Republican Party gain more power.

…the anger many Democratic voters feel, evident during the large anti-Trump marches and town-hall protests that have marked the first month of the Trump administration, can easily turn against members of their own party.

“The base is more than restless – it’s furious,” said Ben Wikler, Washington director for MoveOn.org, a longtime and well-known liberal advocacy group. “It’s up to each and every elected Democrat: If they want to be part of the resistance, they’ll have an army by their side.

“And if they don’t, they’ll have to face the biggest grassroots movement that I’ve seen in my life,” he added.

Did I say the midterm elections offered the Democratic party some hope? Silly me.

There Is No Barack Obama

Try as they might, Democrats just can’t find someone to replace their newly-retired messiah, Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton was supposed to break a glass ceiling and bring about true equality (or something), but that didn’t happen. The Left was banking on going from an all-encompassing visionary with a “cult of personality” to a fairly acceptable substitute. When that failed to occur, they were left feeling empty and defeated.

There is no Barack Obama among the ranks of current Democrats. He simply does not exist. That truth, and Hillary’s defeat, means the years ahead will be ones of rebuilding and rebranding.

So far, it’s not going well, as seen by Wednesday night’s DNC Debate.

Tune in now for tonight’s #DNCDebate. Watch on CNN and @CNNGo https://t.co/0awcCCQm3W pic.twitter.com/va6itkGaCl

— CNN (@CNN) February 23, 2017

CNN reports:

Another central challenge for Democrats is to recover from the bitter split of the 2016 presidential primary. The wounds of that race were ripped open at the debate over a question about whether the race between Sanders and Hillary Clinton was “rigged.”

After Perez sought to avoid directly answering the question — saying the party had lost trust in its voters and created a “crisis of relevance” — long-shot candidate Sam Ronan, an Air Force veteran from Ohio, jumped in to call the contest rigged and say Sanders’ supporters felt excluded at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Buttigieg said Democrats don’t want to make the mistake of reliving the 2016 race.

“We can’t allow this to devolve into factional struggle,” he said.

While Trump continues his victory tour as the newly-inaugurated president, the Left is scrambling. But their turmoil isn’t just a reaction to the winning side. A good portion of it is internal struggle within the party, its leadership, and among disgruntled voters.

Drama from the current administration, whether real or imagined, currently inhabits center stage. Nearby, there’s a civil war brewing among Democrats, but we only see glimpses of it now and then.

The real issue is whether their infighting will be resolved and effect the short-term for their gain, or continued defeat.