L'Affaire Zelensky
Most likely the media (or at least the right-wing media) will start obsessing over the identity of the initial whistleblower in the Zelensky case - Rand Paul tweeted a link to one of the first articles discussing it last night. Go find it if you want, it's not that difficult and I'm sure Trump will tweet it sometime today in any event to distract from the shellacking the GOP took in KY and VA.
It's not important (except for he and his family personally, obviously - having a vengeful Donald Trump out for your blood was merely a joke when he was a bad reality TV star, but a bit more dangerous when that bad reality TV star has compliant arms of the federal government as his "employees" - his wording), save for the reaction from the GOP. You see, their entire attack vector to dismiss the whistleblower as a reliable witness (ignoring for the fact his story has been backed up by multiple witness and Trump's own braggadocio) is that he worked for the NSC under the Obama administration.
That's it. That's really it. He worked for the Obama-era NSC, so he is tainted. Complicit. Corrupt. Unpatriotic. To quote alleged Representative Louie Gohmert:
"He’s a very staunch Democrat who was supposed to be a point person on Ukraine, during the time when Ukraine was its most corrupt, and he didn’t blow any whistles on their corruption."
To quote fellow staunch Democrat Luke Skywalker, “Impressive. Every word in that sentence was wrong." Aside from Poroshenko-era Ukraine, what Gohmert is presumably referring to, not being "at its most corrupt" (that award would go to Putin ally and Manafort client Viktor Yanukovych, who was so amazingly corrupt he had a private zoo full of ostriches), Gohmert's labelling of the analyst/whistleblower as a "staunch Democrat" is… because he worked for the Obama administration. That's it. He then was held over during the Trump administration (because no one of any stature in national security would work for him) where he proceeded to express misgivings about Trump's Russia policy (I. cannot. even. begin. to. fathom. why.)
But that's the key takeaway here, and it's one the Atlantic's Adam Serwer, who previously wrote a key essay on Trumpian psychology, "The Cruelty Is The Point", notes well. For the Republican party today, they are the only Real Americans. They are the only party worthy of holding power. Anyone not a Republican is illegitimate - not because of anything they may have done, but simply because they are not a part of the party of power.
The two party system in America is dead. The Republican party must either reform itself, or it will either be tossed on the ash heap of history or seize complete power and destroy our republic.
This is not an exaggeration. This is simple fact. The question remains - what to do next?