(Agreeing with you) The biggest failure I see in the Dems these days is a lack of real leadership as you touched on. Outside of Biden (who I wish was 10-20 years younger and was born to this stuff) I'm not seeing much to inspire anyone in the next election. Don't get me wrong, I think there are some excellent people on the blue side in the house/senate, but they are not yet "leading" as few are following.

Kevin M can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. He's made it clear his only goal is to remain speaker as evidenced by his complete rejection of reaching across the aisle to negotiate a deal to keep the government open. He already did this a few months ago with the deal he'd struck with Biden, but now that the children in the house are pitching a fit, it's off the table. Why in name of all that's holy would anyone ever try and negotiate with the GOP these days??

"10$"

"I'll give you 1"

"Well, we need to get this through - how about 7$"

silence

"ok - let's just meet in the middle. It's really important for the country"

"1$ or nothing"

"Fine, we need this - you can have it for a dollar"

"50 cents"

All deals are moving targets and they have zero integrity to actually stick to the deals they make, which just become the starting point for a new round of negotiations.

I'd wish for a blue wave come 2024, but their own constituents are either too greedy or too stupid to vote 'em out of office.