Do Democrats still have a "big tent" party, or have they now morphed to being a "small tent" party by insisting on too many must-pass litmus tests? That is a question Democrats should really be asking themselves now, after suffering a humiliating election defeat. That's the traditional way to put it, but at the risk of using an offensive term, what they really need to decide is whether they're going to allow what might be called "Cafeteria Democrats" to exist peacefully within their party or not.

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The circus has come to town, and performing in the center ring this week was the teeny-tiny clown car which disgorged a continuing parade of clowns, each more outlandish than the last.

Or, to put things another way: get ready for lots more circus/clown metaphors in the very near future. It's really the only possible way to describe Donald Trump selecting his cabinet. But we'll get to the individual clowns in a moment, because first we've got to take a broader view of what Trump's up to here.

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Yes, this is way too early. Insanely early. I get that.

But looking into the future with hope is what Democrats are going to have to start doing at some point, and I figured now -- while Democrats are in some pretty deep despair -- is a pretty good time to start doing it. So today let's think about the 2028 Democratic primary season, and run down the list of possible Democratic candidates. Hey, it's better than watching Donald Trump make cabinet picks, right?

In 2028 we will have a rare election, because both political parties will have open races. Trump is term-limited out of office (assuming the Constitution is still relatively intact, of course), and there will be no heir apparent on the Democratic side.

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We've all already seen this movie once, so we should kind of know what to expect. And sequels are usually much worse than the original.

Which is why today we're going to devote this column to pondering how bad things could really get in Donald Trump's second term in office (rather than sticking to our normal Friday format). Some things will probably not be as horrifically bad as Democrats now think, some things will indeed be precisely that bad, and some things will be even more horrific than anyone's imagining right now. And my apologies, because this is not an attempt at making a comprehensive list of predictions but rather just free association, what might be called initial thoughts.

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As we all contemplate another four years of Donald Trump, the second-guessing and finger-pointing has already begun. Maybe things would have been different if Joe Biden had decided, on his own, to live up to his pledge of being a transitional president by announcing he would not run for a second term. Maybe things would have been different if he had finished his campaign -- he beat Trump once, right? Maybe there should have been a real contest to see which Democrat should run instead of Biden. Maybe Kamala Harris wasn't the best candidate. Maybe Democrats should have gone with a more traditional (White male, in other words) candidate. Maybe she should have picked someone else to be on the ticket with her. There will be plenty of time to anguish over all of these and more (anguish is what Democrats do best, after all).

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The final week of the 2024 presidential campaign was reduced -- quite literally -- to "trash talk." This is perhaps a fitting end for this contest, one might think.

But among all the frenzy surrounding who called whom "garbage" this week, Vice President Kamala Harris delivered her closing pitch to voters from the same spot Donald Trump incited a mob to go attack the United States Capitol four years ago. From the Ellipse, with the White House in the background, Harris spoke of the differences between her and Trump, and made her closing argument for why Americans should vote for her rather than him.

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Today seems like a good day to write an optimistic column. I was inspired to do so by reading a different optimistic column, in today's New York Times (to give full credit for my outburst of rosy-tinted cheerfulness). The article, by Jonathan Alter, is titled: "What If Democrats Win The White House And Congress On Tuesday?" It does begin by admitting that this all may be a "pipe dream," but it lays out what Kamala Harris and a Democratic Congress (with control of both houses) might be able to accomplish.

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The Washington Post secured its entry into the annals of American political history by taking down a United States president. Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein famously uncovered the entire Watergate scandal, which caused Richard Nixon to resign in disgrace. Award-winning books and movies about the brave reporters followed, portraying them as giants in the world of journalism.

Ah... those were the days, eh?

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Kamala Harris was asked in an interview recently whether, if she became president, she would be open to the idea of pardoning Donald Trump. She dodged the question as a "hypothetical," and the interviewer moved on. Today Donald Trump indicated that he'd be open to pardoning Hunter Biden, which isn't exactly the same thing but seemed to be Trump trying to put forward the idea that a pardon would be a good idea, and that the alternative would be "very bad for our country."

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We begin today with a few definitions, from Merriam-Webster:

fasces
a bundle of rods and among them an ax with projecting blade borne before ancient Roman magistrates as a badge of authority

fascism
(1) a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual, that is associated with a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, and that is characterized by severe economic and social regimentation and by forcible suppression of opposition
(2) a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

surprise
(1) an attack made without warning
(2) something that surprises
(3) the feeling caused by something unexpected or unusual

October surprise
[US politics] a significant revelation or event in the month prior to an election that has the potential to shift public opinion about an election candidate and that is often orchestrated to influence the election's outcome

That's what the dictionary says.

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