Long term positive effects for Democrats due to Trump?

We'll have to see. I certainly hope that's what's happening, and it's consistent with the polling data on those issues that shows the Democrats increasing their support for free trade and immigrants/refugees.

But the Democrats were all about peace and civil liberties under Bush and we all know how that turned out.

So if it holds, then that's wonderful. I pray that it does, because a Democratic Party that was pro-trade, pro-immigration, pro-market, etc. would be a party worth supporting. A Democratic Party that follows Bernie down the path to isolationism, nativism, and protectionism needs to be nuked from orbit. I'm glad someone is optimistic about it at least.

I personally think the most dangerous long-term precedent being set by this administration is the brazen dishonesty and opaqueness, and what it revealed about the two party system and the courts.

Trump has revealed that politicians can lie over and over again, about every fact of every issue. And we're not talking about lawyer lies and half-truths. We're talking "look you right in the eye and say something that both the speaker and listener knows is false." The kind of lie that isn't even meant to convey the information being lied about, but instead is meant to convey "I can do whatever I want and you can't do a thing about it."

The kind of dishonesty that suggests as long as you're populist and demagogic enough to keep your bigoted mob of a base foaming at the mouth, the partisan rot is so deep that there is no risk of being held accountable. And that if you just shut the media out and stop observing even the most basic principles of transparency in government, the courts are generally going to defer to you as well.

The 2019 GOP operates on exactly one principle: protect Trump. He can lie, he can cheat, he can break the law, he can spit on the military, he can spit on the Bible, he can spit on the Constitution and they do not care.

It will be a miracle if future politicians choose to ignore what Trump has exposed about politics in America. It will be a miracle if future presidents don't follow in Trump's footsteps, knowing that so long as their party has at least one house of Congress they are absolutely untouchable. We got a glimpse of this under Obama, when the Dems ripped all the peace and civil liberties and due process and anti-torture language out of their platform to bring it into line with Obama's evil policies. But now we see how truly deep the infection goes.

And unless that miracle happens, we'll just end up careening back and forth between anti-market, anti-trade, anti-foreign, anti-immigrant, anti-peace right wing populism and anti-market, anti-trade, anti-foreign, anti-immigrant, anti-peace left wing populism.

There are far worse things than the establishment, and now we know what they look like.