Thread by @thomasafine

It's impossible to perfectly predict the future, but based on how things have gone so far, we can guess at how the next chapter in this drama is most likely to go. This is one guess, and it should have a disurbingly familiar feel to it.

The Mueller report is released in a pure enough form to actually know what's in it.

The Democratic leadership is horrified. There is much news.

The GOP fights back with what has worked perfectly up until now: "So what?"

The Democratic leadership samples the political wind. The GOP remains unified, and the Dems assess that they would not have the votes to successfully impeach.

So... they don't

Another year and a half of Trump. More judges appointed. More insance decisions. No election reforms. More propaganda. More attacks on the press. More authoritarian wear-and-tear on our ability to fight.

Somehow, they split the Democratic vote and get us fighting amongst ourselves.

Trump could actually win 2020.

But... even if he doesn't win, we've already lost. Because after four full years, Trump's authoritarian politics will have become the new normal. The next GOP candidate will be more like Trump than not.

And eventually, Dem candidates will start to act like Trump too. Survive or die. American as I have always known it will be gone.

This is why I see impeachment as critical. It's because it's the only way to get back to anything resembling normal. Without impeachment, everything that Trump has done (and the GOP supported) in the past two years becomes ok.

Imagine how much more corrupt we might be as a nation if Nixon had not resigned, and then impeachment had failed. What message would that have sent to the corrupt? "There is nothing stopping you."

How can we make this story not happen? The weakest point in the story above is where the Democratic leadership samples the political wind.

WE ARE THE WIND.

Whenever this report finally comes out, this is our moment to sieze, to make sure that the overwhelming grassroots response, is "impeach". We all need to call Congress, and write letters, and march in the streets, so that the politicians have the support to do what's right.