For Democrats, and for Republicans, a summer of discontent

This has been a rough week for Republicans and for Democrats. As the long August recess begins, these are not happy times for either political party.

The Democratic presidential candidates put on two nights of debating in Detroit, producing maximum internal bickering and negativity and minimal positive or outward messaging to voters who will decide the 2020 election. …

The physics of politics generally mean that when one party is up, the other is down; when one is confident, the other is nervous or pessimistic. In the age of Trump, those rules, like so many others, don’t apply. Everyone seems to have something to worry about, which means Republicans are also suffering this summer. CONT.

Dan Balz, Washington Post