@UntimelyRippd

#1.2.1.1.2
otherwise i'd be catatonic.

@TheOtherMaven

Elegant, when it's actually in place and actually functioning. Who would have thought that a French monarchist was the first one to come up with the idea of checks and balances? Shoot. I don't remember his name.

They were deeply foolish not to understand that riches in the private sector needed a check as well, but they have a bit of an historical excuse; back then, it seemed like shopkeepers, merchants etc. were the ones rising against the aristocracy, not that they were becoming a new aristocracy. Although not everybody fell for that, and surely people understood the role the East India Company played in the injustice they saw--something the right wingers never want to mention about the "Tea Party."

#1.2.1.1.3

and the authors of the Federalist Papers were intensely aware of it. That's exactly WHY the US government was originally set up in the clunky, inefficient, half-assed way it was. They didn't want efficiency. They didn't want a state where the majority could ride roughshod over the minority, be the difference ever so small. (Nor did they want one where the minority could do likewise to the majority, at least in general -- certain specific instances excluded.) The name of the game was "checks and balances" -- but the checks have been eroded and the balances destroyed.

@snoopydawg

I think there are fewer clear-sighted, honest people among the American public than there have been in my adult lifetime. The reason I don't state that as a certainty is that it's hard to figure out how many clear-sighted people are left. Many of the people who see our politics clearly have stopped talking about politics. I can tell because when politics comes up with people like handymen, hair stylists, people in the grocery store aisle--they always say something like "I think they're all corrupt" or "I think they're all out to get us" and then say that they don't like politics or that they don't pay attention to it. There is definitely a contingent of people who, like one of my partners, have simply stopped discussing politics because it smells like an abattoir that hasn't been shoveled for a week.

Then there's the fact that fewer and fewer public venues are open to people with our opinions, which makes it even harder to ascertain how many of us there are (this is, I'm sure, by design). I wouldn't say that the contingent of the clear-sighted is a Nixonian silent majority, but they exist, and I'm not sure in what numbers. My anecdotal experience indicates it's not a tiny minority. I'd love for an actual scientific survey to be done on this question, but good luck getting something like that out of Gallup or Ras.

But yes, the horror of the last three years is that the left, en masse, has decided that it's OK to condone any moral atrocity and cover up their moral failings with a veneer of anti-bigotry. There is actually little difference between what they're doing and the rationalizations of supporters of the Third Reich--the only thing that looks different to me is the moral cloak they choose. For Nazis of that time, patriotism was the moral cloak for atrocity. For the left of this time, it's the fight against bigotry. But the underlying moral void is the same.

Like most people who hold a political position that rests on a void of morality and reason, they have become authoritarian, replacing critical analysis and moral commitment with personal loyalty to politicians and parties.

That said, I can't forgive the years 2000-2011, when those people, most of them, had not yet gone mad, and none of us was listened to--or dare I say, given political representation. Nor can I forgive the fact that none of us has had a real political choice since the mid-80s. Nor, for that matter, can I forgive what's being done currently to the millions of Americans who haven't drunk the Koolaid.

This hasn't been a republic for a long time.

#1.2.1.1.3

it just depends on whose party is in control. Yes many of us protested against everything that the Bush admin did, but then when Obama became pres and started doing the same things, lots of those people gave him a pass for it.

And again we are seeing echos of the Bush admin with Trump really amping up the abuse of power, but his followers are just fine with it. And many 'democrats' are just fine about Nancy taking impeachment off the table because 'it would be bad for the country' and rile up his base. Many of those people are only blaming the GOP for what Trump is doing, but as I have stated many times there are lots of things the democrats could do to stop them if they wanted to.

As for the police state that we have been living under especially since the Patriot act was signed there are many people who are fine with it because they worship both the cops and the military and refuse to see what their country has become.

I hear what you are saying, but the fact is that yes many people think that if just enough people voted for the right person in the right party then we can get the country back to where it was before the Reagan idiot started its downward slide.

BTW... I'm quoting strife delivery's excellent comment here. I think he hammered the nail.

I suppose I bear some guilt as well for voting for Clinton in 1996, by which time I should have known better as well--though it certainly wasn't clear that he was an authoritarian police state warmongering type. But it was clear he was a corporate tool, and that should have been enough for me.

You aren't alone in this. I am just as guilty for voting for Clinton and Obama, but don't you see the pattern? Both Bush 1 and his idiot son did things in the sunlight that we didn't like, but then we got two people who said all the right thing while blowing sunshine up our pattooties while doing the same damn things behind our backs. Now we have Trump doing things along the same lines, but he isn't hiding behind the charm and coolness of Bill and Barry. We have been doing the political two step and it is just now that many of us are waking up to what has been happening for so long.