Two roads diverged in a wood and I --

The last lines of Robert Frost's well-known poem, The Road Not Taken, are:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Donald Trump is a master of misdirection and unless we're careful, he will have us racing down the wrong road and that will make all the difference.

Americans who have over the years considered themselves liberal in the modern sense of the term,  associated with or, like myself, migrated to the Democratic Party, because it, as a whole, best reflected our values. There is no "liberal" party. The term liberal has evolved over the years and still has different meanings in different parts of the world. I take my personal meaning of liberal from the speech by John F. Kennedy, delivered in 1960 -- my Junior Year at USC -- in which he said,

"...liberalism is not so much a party creed or a set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of Justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."

There's an IDEOLOGICAL battle within (as well as against) both camps of the traditional establishment parties. Trump has taken the Republican Party by the throat and shaken the moderation out of it, but there are still moderates who identify as Republicans and conservatives, who feel completely set adrift.

Independents who, according to a March 2019 Gallup poll, actually make up a larger percentage of the voting population than either Democrats or Republicans, swung the 2016 election for Trump with many thinking he would become "more presidential" once in office.

The POLITICAL battle before us is between Republicans, led by Donald J. Trump, and Democrats, with Tom Perez as prima facie leader. Perez is Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). That, however, does not make him the leader of the left. Bernie Sanders emerged as the leader of the "old new left" in 2016, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a meteoric rise to lead the "new new left" in 2018 when she defeated Congressman Joe Crowley, the boss of the Queens County Democratic Party and someone widely thought to be the next speaker of the House.

In order to win in 2020 against Trump and his far-right faction of the Republican Party, the currently balkanized left must form strong coalitions with the same goal (if not the exact same platform) of ousting the monster in the White House.

For the next twenty months, in order to avoid the catastrophe of an 8-year Trump Presidency, establishment Democrats, Justice Democrats, Progressives, Democratic Socialists, and other "left and left-leaning" organizations need to find common ground and work together to achieve the common end -- the end of Trump. To do this, they must bring Independents into the fold, which will be tricky, given the leftward lean of the coalition.

This doesn't mean that Justice Democrats must "knuckle under" to Tom Perez and Cheri Bustos and toe the party line. It means meaningful dialogue free of recriminations geared toward goal-oriented compromise. If they can't do that, maybe they don't deserve to the lead the nation. Chances are, they won't anyway.

DONALD TRUMP will continue tweet about the themes that rile his base; "illegal immigration," "infanticide," "fake news," the Mueller "witch hunt," countries taking advantage of America, from China on trade to NATO countries on defense, and the old reliable, Hillary Clinton emails. Whenever the news cycle tilts against him, he finds a way to alter the balance by saying or doing something outlandish, but generally inconsequential. When he's actually done something outrageous and consequential, like separating families and their children at the border, he tries to pass the blame off on someone else, e.g., Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Trump will also attempt to probe divisions he spots within the opposition, like the Bernie and Biden factions arguing over which candidate has the worst record with women. The fact that Trump himself is a serial abuser doesn't stop him. He's glad to bring others into his orbit. Democrats must avoid eating their own. If they don't, Trump will serve up plenty of "what about ism."

Finally, as 2020 draws nearer, Trump will brag about all that he's accomplished and make more promises about the great things he's going to do in his second term, e.g., he just promised that when he's reelected in 2020, he will implement the greatest health care plan ever. Yes folks, he is indeed a con man.

Democrats -- center, left, moderate, new and old -- must avoid barking at the moon -- avoid responding angrily to Trump's attempts at misdirection and stick to the issues that resonate with the majority of Americans. And believe me, when Democrats control the White House, the Senate, and the House, we will see a great health care system enacted -- because no matter what their leanings, Democrats believe in serving the people, and that will make all the difference.