This election is being portrayed as an existential choice-- Do we want democracy? Or do we want fascism? The problem with this framing is that it presents a false choice. Democracy isn't actually on the table.

Princeton released a study characterizing the US as an oligarchy. And our political elites--those we charge with protecting democracy--agree.

I guess it takes a study to point out the obvious.
-- Jim Sandler to John Podesta

Well, no, Mr. Podesta, it doesn't take a study. But it might help if you stopped deliberately obfuscating this fact. I know, I know, you're afraid that if we saw the sausage being made, we'd all turn vegetarian. That's your problem. Tell the foodies that rat hairs and roach parts are hot, new, exotic ingredients! Or, ya know, clean your damn kitchen.

Luckily for us, America reinvents itself on a fairly regular basis. Our social contract has gotten a lot of edits--on the organization of the economy (FDR), on civil rights (MLK), or on both (Lincoln). We have adjusted our ideas on the role of America in the lives of foreigners (Kissinger), and the role of government in the lives of Americans.

We are currently living under the Reagan revision.

The Reagan revolution, though it pushed back on civil rights, did not achieve a cultural consensus on them. And it embraced the Cold War mindset of Kissinger. The status quo in these areas did not change substantially. The revolutionary part of the Reagan revolution had two main pivot points--the economy, and the role of government.

The Reagan economic model of unregulated capitalism is based on the idea that 1) everyone is selfish; and 2) if everyone is equally selfish, we will balance each other out into something approaching fairness and meritocracy. In his three part series, The Trap, Adam Curtis looks at our modern economy in terms of game theory. It's the prisoner's dilemma writ large, and we are the prisoners.

Let's pause to meditate on this for a minute. We will be the most successful in our current economic system if we act like selfish criminals. Sounds like a recipe for a civil society to me! Throw in some rat hairs and roach parts and call it a stew!

As for the role of government: Hey, Grover Norquist! Turns out if you drown democracy in a bathtub, you kill it. Was that a good idea? What will the effects be of simultaneously diminishing democracy and increasing authoritarian "law and order" systems? Check your Magic 8 Ball.

Since Reagan, we have had establishment agreement on these two seriously flawed approaches. Arguments have been about how much to deregulate industry and how much to cut government services--not whether to do so. In the final analysis, love Reagan or Bush or Clinton or Bush or Obama or Clinton or hate them, it's fair to say that the current social contract has not proven equal to the tasks of maintaining democracy and managing globalization.

So the crux of the matter is this: we need a new social contract. Trump doesn't have the capacity to give us one (other than Thunderdome) and Clinton doesn't have the desire. The only way we're going to get one, regardless of who wins, is if we write the damn thing ourselves and make them sign it, if we stop being prisoners in their constructed dilemma.