The big story from the 2020 presidential election was the previously solid-blue states that flipped for Trump. Democrats still fixate on the roughly 70,000 votes it would have taken for them to hold onto three states in what had previously been considered solid Democratic states (part of the famous "Big Blue Wall," in other words): Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Was this a new demographic change, as blue-collar workers completed a journey they had begun in 1980 (they were originally called "Reagan Democrats," if you'll remember)? Did this shift in the red/blue map presage a much tougher road to victory for any future Democrat?

Well, the answer is still: "It's too early to tell," since we haven't had a presidential election since. Nobody really knows, in other words, whether Trump's pickups will be lasting or whether it was just the circumstances of the 2016 election (call it misogyny or anti-Hillary hatred or what you will). Flipping those three states back to blue would have meant an extra 46 Electoral College votes, which would have put Hillary Clinton over the top.

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Will anything actually change this time around? Will these mass shootings finally spur the politicians to act, when all the others didn't? While it's easy to be pessimistic, since it is rare indeed that anything happens after such tragedies, perhaps this time is different. We couldn't say why this time seems to have had more of an impact than the other 250 times it has happened this year, but so far it has. Perhaps it was the fact that there were multiple mass shootings in a single day or perhaps it was the high body count or perhaps it was the El Paso gunman's obvious racist motivation, but for whatever reason this time could be different.

Of course, the big question at the heart of whether the National Rifle Association can be defeated in Congress this time around is whether the Democrats can get Donald Trump on their side or not. As of this writing, that is still an open question.

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A real Twitter war has now erupted. This is not a mere "tweetstorm," where people snipe at each other through Twitter messages, this is a dispute between Twitter itself and what looks to be the entire Republican Party election machine. How it all ends nobody knows, but it was almost inevitable that Twitter would eventually get sucked in to the partisan divide in one way or another. In this growing conflict, Twitter fired the first shot, by locking up Mitch McConnell's election site for posting a threatening video (the video was of protesters outside Mitch's house threatening him, so it wasn't like the campaign was threatening anyone else, in all fairness). The Republicans have returned fire by announcing they are pulling all election Twitter ad spending. So far, neither side has blinked.

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Over 200 House Democrats just signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell which demands he allow Senate votes on the universal background check bills that have already passed the House with bipartisan support. Democrats are also saying McConnell should call the Senate back from their August recess to hold a special session devoted to passing these bills. This seems unlikely, seeing as how Mitch doesn't want to pass these bills in the first place. But perhaps shaming him into doing something might eventually bear fruit, if Democrats keep the pressure on McConnell until the Senate does reconvene.

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We're beginning to see some polling which reflects the impressions the voters got in the second round of Democratic debates. It's still early and these trends won't become really solid until we see at least another week's worth of polling, but it's still worth taking a look to see where the Democratic field apparently now stands. So far, there hasn't been a whole lot of dramatic movement in the polls. There are really only three mini-trends to watch, and two of them really began before the debates even got started.

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In 2017, immediately after the Las Vegas shooting, I wrote a column titled "A Sad New Normal." It began:

Here we are again. We all know the drill by now. We all know pretty much what the eyewitnesses will say, what the talking heads on the television will say, and what the politicians will say. None of it ever seems to change, and none of it seems to change anything going forward, either. We go through the cycle of "mass gun attack" and hear the same words over again. We go through the cycle of grief which will then fade, right up to the time when it happens anew all over again. This is, sadly, the new normal for America.

It was a pretty pessimistic article, as you can see. There was ample reason for such pessimism, since even after the most horrific acts of gun violence imaginable, nothing ever seems to change. The debates are trotted out, there's a lot of fury and indignation, and then there is no concrete result and everything returns to normal until the next outrage committed by a mass shooter.

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Well, the second round of the Democratic debates is over, which means we are now smack in the middle of the debate about the debates. This is a window where we don't yet have an accurate picture of whether this week's debates will change anything in the polling (likely outcome: not very much), so instead of hard data all we have to argue about is sheer speculation and opinion. And, from what's being said, some are wringing their hands with worry.

They shouldn't be. Seriously, we are still so early in the process that all of this will be forgotten (for better or worse) by the time anyone actually casts a ballot. So calm down, everyone, and stop freaking out.

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Whew! The second Democratic presidential debates are now officially in the history books. Thankfully, this will likely be the last marathon two-night debate round, as the third debate is likely to cut the field so significantly that those who qualify might all be able to fit on a single stage.

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OK, I fully admit that I just couldn't resist that title.

Last night was indeed a throwdown in the Motor City, with 10 Democrats sparring on one stage. My overall impression of the first round of the second debates was that this was, in many ways, the debate that I've been personally itching to see for at least four years now. It was a direct confrontation between the "moderate" or "centrist" wing of the Democratic Party versus the "progressive" or "Democratic" wing of the party. It rarely descended into personalities, and instead remained a purely ideological battle of different visions for how to lead both Democrats and the entire country into the future. We almost got such a debate last time, with Bernie mixing it up with Hillary, but there was far too much personality getting in the way of the purely ideological debate. Also, both the country and the Democratic Party have moved significantly since 2016, so the ground for this debate has shifted.

Many are using the term "tag team" to describe how there were clear dividing lines between the "teams" on stage last night. There was virtually no conflict between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren -- indeed, they could have delivered each other's lines without skipping a beat. There was also not much tension between all the moderates attacking the progressives, as they were all fully focused on making a name for themselves by scoring points against either Sanders or Warren. So the night did have a "tag team" feel to it.

The dividing line was pretty clear. The two factions can be summed up as the "Dream Big!" faction versus the "Dream Small!" faction. On one side are the folks who think that presenting breathtakingly ambitious goals is the way to fire up voters, and on the other side are those who caution that pragmatism and incrementalism is really all the voters can hope for, so why not be honest with them? No matter where you personally come down on that sliding scale, last night was an excellent examination of the pros and cons of each side's argument. What it all boils down to is how voters are going to define the nebulous concept of "electability" in the age of Donald Trump -- who was supposed to be the most unelectable candidate ever, right up until he got elected.

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The way Mitch McConnell sees it, he's taking a bold stance against the federalization of elections in America. The way everyone else sees it, he's refusing to allow any bills dealing with beefing up the security of America's elections from going forward, thus becoming what was called during the Red Scare and the Cold War a "useful idiot" for Moscow -- because by his refusal to act, he is furthering the ability of Vladimir Putin to attack our elections once again. But while this is a fascinating exercise in political theater all around, today's news shows without a shadow of a doubt that the supposed Republican reverence for "states' rights" when it comes to conducting elections evaporates instantly when one of those states does something with which they do not agree. This has always been the case, really, when it comes to right-wing support for the concept of states' rights.

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