On the prospects of Democratic victory

Here's my latest piece for Comment is Free. Happy long weekend!

I'd like to submit, for your consideration, two different political parties, each elected to power to check the excesses - war making, corruption, constitutional breaches - of the country's other major political party.

First imagine Party One. Party One fails in its charge entirely. Its leaders spend a year flailing, terrified to take any risks, losing procedural votes on measures to end the war, sending letters, holding press conferences, issuing resolutions expressing disappointment with the other party's corruption in the face of their refusal to submit to oversight and yet passing laws that legalise some of that very corruption.

Now imagine Party Two. Party Two is almost the exact opposite of Party One. Aware of their opponents' intransigence, they refuse to grant them any additional power, refuse to make legal their various crimes and take legal action when their apparatchiks violate the explicit letter of the law.

Which seems like a more effective party to you? Which would you trust with the governance of your country? The first or the second? The Democrats or ... the Democrats?