Politics is often conceived as a type of game. To win, a person or group must amass more power than the other players in order to advance their own goals. Victory can be achieved through cooperation with the other players, domination over them or some combination of the two.

This article first appeared in Salon.

Alternatively, a person or group can decide not to participate in this current version of politics, while they seek to invent their own game with different rules.

Panelists on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" agreed President Donald Trump's phone call to Ukraine's president should be a "game changer" -- and was clearly "impeachable."

The July 25 call appears to have triggered a complaint from a whistleblower, after the president allegedly offered military and financial aid to Ukraine in exchange for pursuing an investigation into Joe Biden's son doing business there.

"It does feel like a moment in time," said MSNBC's Donny Deutsch. "We've sat on this set after so many Trump's snafus and this is it -- this is a game changer. If the Democrats can't smell this. I've been going all along, step away from impeachment because when it's a process thing, when it's campaign finance, this is the big one. If this is the case, this is the Super Bowl, and the Democrats need to pounce aggressively."