THREAD — TRUMP IS NOT ON THE RUN.

HE'S ON THE ATTACK.

There's been an incessant drumbeat since 2017 that Trump is flailing, scared, freaking out, etc. It's an understandable coping mechanism, the sense that things will somehow return to pre-2016. But it's a dangerous illusion.

The steady erosion of the rule of law has accelerated rapidly in 2019. With #Barr as AG, Trump has finally found another operator like McConnell who will shred our constitutional protections with smug, brutal efficiency.

It's hard to overstate how bad things are getting.

This is not meant to discourage or demoralize people. It's a gut check, an acknowledgment that we may not be able to wrest power back from these authoritarians. In which case, we have to step up, be leaders, give each other support. Be strong. And draw strength from one another.

Part of seeing the gravity of this moment is to look not just at the aggressors (the GOP) but the defenders.

On a battlefield — and I've survived one — you have to change generals if you're losing so much ground that the war is being lost.

That's what's happening.