Said by Le Monde Diplomatique under the title [please read the whole piece it is excellent, accurate and well written]

At the centre, but on the margins

‘The system is rigged.’ We already knew that the candidate with the largest share of the national vote does not always become US president; that the race for the White House ignores three-quarters of the states, in which the outcome of the election seems a foregone conclusion; that almost six million Americans with criminal records have lost their right to vote; that 11% of potential voters lack the identity papers required to cast a ballot; that the electoral system gives the two main parties a decisive advantage. Nor were we unaware that money, the media, lobbies and redistricting distort the democratic process

Not holding back on the language either

Yet its [democrats] vision of progress has ceased to be egalitarian: it is sometimes individualist and paternalistic (‘try harder’) and sometimes meritocratic (‘study more’), but it offers no future to the peripheral America of the heartlands which, far from the coasts, remain cut off from the prosperity of the great global cities. This America is witnessing the disappearance of the industrial jobs that had long been the mainstay of a middle class with little college education yet confident in its future.

Before Trump, the Republican Party had little to offer them either. The party’s priorities were reducing taxes on businesses and letting them export capital and outsource production. But by talking about country, religion and morality to workers and the white proletariat, and by encouraging the American heartlands to believe their decline was caused by pampered minorities and arrogant intellectuals, the conservatives ensured that the designated victims of their economic and business policies served as their electoral canon fodder for years

This year it’s still too risky for the Clintons’ party to scold all those who react badly to the problems the Democrats created, and to suggest that they seek training or a new career, or relocate. Because, with Trump in the ring, the Democrats can no longer be certain that they are the sole electoral refuge for what remains of a working-class base

She already scolded us for being irrationally childish and wanting "free stuff".

And ends with:

Rigged or not, we will soon know whether the US system has become so fragile that it may yield to a man like Trump. But if another terrorist attack, a bad TV appearance or the discovery of more compromising emails between now and the election keeps Clinton out of the White House, it would prove not just that the party of the status quo could not fight the authoritarian right, but that the latter derives much of its energy from the failed policies of the neoliberal left.

I think it is a well written piece and worth a read as it points out the heart of the problems and castigates our defunct political system accurately.

The kicker paragraph for me was

But there’s more to it in this election: a feeling that crosses party divisions, an anger expressed in the primaries by the 12 million people who voted for Senator Bernie Sanders and the 13.3 million supporters of Republican billionaire Donald Trump. They reckoned the system is rigged because politicians, both Republicans and Democrats, have launched wars in the Middle East that have impoverished the US without bringing victory. Rigged, because a majority of the population continues to pay for the consequences of an economic crisis that has cost those who caused it nothing.

Bingo as they say.

Sorry to keep quoting from foreign sources but Serge Halimi is a very good writer and editorial director.

Sometimes it takes someone outside of the system to point out the bloody obvious which our own MSM ignores completely and deliberately.

Ignored, abused and lied to for all too long is there any wonder that any straw is grasped? Even if the base arguments are vile in their divisiveness. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties are completely to blame for this division, they have worked tirelessly to maintain them so as to assure their own power for their ever decreasing base [the elite and corporations]

War crimes committed are pardoned amongst themselves, re Obama's "look forward not back" rhetoric, they protect each other no matter what; so as to maintain the iron fisted hold of the duopoly. This can also be seen by the political, media and financial elites closing of the ranks around Hillary, not because they agree, but because they fear the consequences.

The system is rigged.

Democracy has been battered into submission.

If you continue to fall for and vote for the "least bad"/"lesser of two evils" you are aiding and abetting its destruction.

Eventually you will have no choice at all.