Folks, the people running this are not idiots.

They are interested primarily in preserving their power. As we have seen, the "intelligence community" and various parts of the federal law enforcement bureaucracy are involved in breathtaking malfeasance and abuse of power. And they are involved to great personal benefit. Remember how many DOJ personnel were accepting nice gifts from media figures? Ever noticed how many high level personnel from the DOJ and the "intelligence community" go on to extremely well-paying retirement careers after they've served a ridiculously low number of years in federal employ with a nice cushy retirement and benefits?

Remember Jamie Gorelick, one of the people most directly responsible for making 9/11 possible going on to work for Fannie May where she made more than 20 million dollars promoting housing policies that led directly to the economic crisis in 2008?

That's what is at stake here. And it's way more important than any single election...because the bottom line is that this group of people has a stranglehold on power. Just look at how they've deployed it against Trump. That structure is what is at stake here and with it intact they can do as they please...even against a president who is inclined to clean that shit up.

Remember how they neutered Sessions immediately and essentially ran the DOJ as a complete resistance campaign? It's only now starting to be addressed and it is anyone's guess how effective Barr can be in correcting that. Which is why the same cabal of people has been busily attacking Barr.

The power at stake here is not about the election. It's about the underbelly of Washington DC that makes elections irrelevant. This shit has been developing for decades and it is on the cusp of achieving absolute power in the country. Half the Republican party is effectively tamed or in on it. All the democrats are in on it. Anyone who steps out of line gets shoddy, politically motivated FBI investigations and prosecutions over nothing.

Remember Ted Stevens? Remember how the DOJ made up a bunch of bullshit and got rid of him with fake criminal charges that a federal judge later threw out and censured the prosecutors over? Remember how the people who did that were not fired or disciplined by DOJ in any way?

Congress is not the locus of their power. They kept Donald Trump on a leash  for two years while in the minority in Congress simply through maneuvering and manipulation of "intelligence community" and DOJ powers.

If Donald Trump succeeds at bringing sunlight to this and at actually fighting it, their base of power is gone, the flow of money stops, and some of them might even end up in prison.

That is what this is all about.

The short term electoral fate of the democratic party is irrelevant. The democratic party is merely a useful entity for helping promote and protect this system. Just look at Hillary's campaign. What in her campaign was in any way, shape, or form good for the long term of the Democratic Party? Absolutely nothing. Her campaign was entirely a campaign to promote and protect these cancers on the body politic. They are who she campaigned to and signaled her shared allegiance with. They didn't campaign to blue collar workers in swing states because those people are nothing more than useful dupes they need to fool every couple of years to help advance their power base further.

This is about stopping Trump's ability to damage this power structure that has been carefully constructed over decades.

They are well funded and far better organized than anyone who would like to see their system destroyed. They have agents everywhere and the sort of relentless appetite for power you see parodied in movies.

Impeachment is about stopping Trump and those he has recruited from being able to damage that. Nothing more. If the Democrats lose in 2020 but Trump is unable to make any headway in attacking that structure, it is a win for them. Because there will be other presidents and they will either play ball or get the Trump treatment. Only worse.

See the battle that's really being fought, here.