And slowly recovered following escalation in Afghanistan, Obamneycare, piss-poor stimulus(which are good example of what Riley & Brenner mentioned). Reading Lance Selfa's "Democrats: a critical history" gave me clarity.

I think Riley & Brenner built/expanded on the following (excerpt from the review of Selfa's book by Paul Street which IMHO is a good summarye):

https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/hope-killers-by-paul-street/

None of this means that the Democratic and Republican parties are identical. To be sure, the differences that separate them are "minor," Selfa notes, "in comparison to the fundamental commitments that unite them" (p. 13). Still, he reminds us, corporate America would have no reason to embrace a two-party system if there were no differences at all between the two competing "subdivisions" of what Ferdinand Lundberg once called "The Property Party." The U.S. ruling class profits from a narrow-spectrum system wherein one business party is always waiting in the wings to capture and control popular anger and energy when the other business party falls out of favor.

The parties are not simply interchangeable, however. It is the Democrats’ job to police and define the leftmost parameters of acceptable political debate. For the last century it has been the Democrats’ special assignment to play "the role of shock absorber, trying to head off and co-opt restive [and potentially Left, P.S.] segments of the electorate" by posing as "the party of the people." The Democrats performed this critical system-preserving, change-maintaining function in relation to the agrarian populist insurgency of the 1890s, the working-class rebellion of the 1930s and 1940s, and the antiwar, civil rights, anti-poverty, ecology, and feminist movements during and since the 1960s and early 1970s (including the gay rights movement today).

Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: (i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; (iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly.

American capitalism thrives on middle men (and ladies). They magically turn a farmers $.70/lb chicken into $3.59/lb at the store. Of course it's not them, it's trucking and taxes and fees and inspections and advertising and the government and...., well, it's like pharmaceuticals.

Our "leaders" work for those who pay them the real money,not us, not their puny salary but the donor money. They're the middlemen between a better life for us, and what the 1% will allow them to dole out to us. Capitalism has infected our government and to a huge extent our way of life and thinking. For the wealthy it's a sickness, a mental illness that will be passed down through the generations, each generation further and further removed from anyone being told the word no, and the ability to interact outside of their circle with those below their means, other than hired help.

Elections are just sporting events. Team Red against team Blue, because that's what the 1% want.

SIRIUS Left was Sirius Satellite Radio's liberal talk channel. It featured personalities such as Lynn Samuels, Bill Press, Alex Bennett, Mike Malloy, Ed Schultz, Thom Hartmann and Mark Thompson.

from Wikipedia.

I've told this story before once or twice, but I think it fits in with the "left gatekeeper role" of the pro-democratic party pundits on "sirius left" satellite radio of yesteryear. I don't know what its status is now, some time in the late 00s, I became aware of satellite radio and bought the service to relieve the boredom of OTC driving. I wouldn't waste my time with Bill Press and for some reason I felt the same way about Alex Bennett. I did listen to Lynn who was all over the map. to me basically a right wing individualist (there's a place for that); Mike Malloy democratic party apologist and diehard; Ed Schultz the same who had Bernie on often; Thom Hartmann elect democrats the lesser evil and then make them do what we want; and Mark Thompson, protege of the Black Congressional caucus. If I wasn't listening to these political programs, I would listen to blues channel. When that didn't work, I would play Korean music CDs that Ms. So had purchased for me in Seoul.

I think Mike Feder had his own program on the web, but appeared on Lynn's program as well. I got along with him quite well when I called him. Mark Thomson was an insufferable egotist, and did and said whatever the Black caucus wanted. The only good thing about his program was that once a week, Glen Ford, and Bruce Dixon would call out the self serving fake progressive agenda of Mark and the Black caucus and argue with Mark, almost always getting the better of him. When Glen Ford couldn't make it, Bruce Dixon did, both of whom I greatly respected. Glen coined the term "black misleadership class." I consider it a great privilege that they took my calls and responded positively.

Eventually, Mark got sick of my calls especially the last time, when I used Glen's term. "black misleadership class." I guess as a white person I wasn't allowed to make that political observation about the caucus. He launched into some ad hominem diatribe to humiliate me when I called and this happened on the air. To make a long story shorter, the same happened with Ed Schultz, when I criticized democratic positions as fake progressivism. The same with Mike Molloy, another gatekeeper, when I pointed out the serial aggression of the US against Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc., and its true strategic objectives. Lynn went off on me as well, with ad hominem mockery, it was some foreign policy issue I can't remember, I just pointed out a mistake of fact she had made. Pro-democratic party media is by and large a top down operation, they only want the peons to repeat their talking points.

I got the same shit from Mike in "his chatroom." Some of these chatters broke off from their association with Mike for similar reasons. Thom Hartman's chat seemed to be a democratic party bot operation. No one could criticize democratic party talking points, or they would be met with all kinds of specious arguments. This was particularly true with the corporatist orientation of US trade policies which at that time was "free trade."

After that, and the trouble Ms. So and I had multiple times when we went to the polls here locally, I couldn't be bothered with US domestic politics and focused virtually all of my efforts on foreign policy issues, or at least writing about them in various chats. My reaction to some of the responses I got on SV. the largest such site I used, when writing about foreign policy issues, if I don't know what I'm talking about why is the response I get so antagonistic and ad hominem in nature? Why not argue the substantive points? Instead unsupported conclusory statements, insults and smears. This is their stock in trade.