It is simply unsustainable that so many of the leaders who wish Americans ill have no dearth of confidence about their authority, while so many of the leaders who wish Americans well are full of insecurity about their power.

You don't need to be a game theory expert to predict where round after round of

"I want to harm people, and I have no shame in doing it"

vs.

"I want to help people, but I don't want to go too far, and I'm not sure that's allowed, and I want to be polite"

will land us all.

Let us be absolutely, 100 percent clear about who is causing this problem:

Republicans.

But that does not mean the Democratic Party, as presently constituted, is adequate to this fight.

This is the fight. We need a party that knows how to win it.

I understand the practical difficulties.

But message matters. Rhetoric matters. Moving the public matters.

Why is there not a thundering, historic, down-through-the-ages speech being given every day by someone right now?

That doesn't require Mitch's consent.

I have no illusions about this, or any other individual thing, getting it done.

But I don't understand where the fervor is, where that "passionate intensity" is, where the case is being made as loudly and unforgettably as possible, to make the issue winnable.

Why isn't someone making an extraordinary Christmas speech, perhaps on the steps of the Capitol or some other attention-getting space, making a case our grandchildren will learn about in schools? Where is it?

I will donate free sentences to you. Just someone do it.

America will not long survive a contest between cruelty and milquetoast.

Step up to the plate, people.

And within the party, the new voices who are brilliant, who are fiery, who have passion, who know how to tell a story, who ache for regular people -- they are sidelined, they are scorned, they get no speaking time. And the bland, the encrusted, and the passionless reign forever.

You can't blame the other side for beating you if you don't try to win.