ErinRose -- What we really need is a modern democracy. We need a parliamentary form of government.

I think Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated that it is nearly impossible to have a 3rd party succeed. It seems that Thom's suggestion to get inside the party and change it is the best way. For example, Bernie came much closer to changing the party for good than Teddy did in trying the 3rd party approach. Incidentally, the economy was much worse in Teddy's time than it is now. At the end of the 19th century, 90% of the populace was below the poverty level.

I just checked and one of his posts from three months back is still functional, so they must not take down anything.

Not a "rant' at all, deepspace. Well expressed. I won't attempt to comment (short on time this morning) other than to say I'm in accord with much of what you had to say. We do differ a little in our view of America's shining past. You are obviously intelligent and come across as well read, even highly educated, so if wouldn't surprise me if you've read "A People's History of the United States from 1492 to Present" by Howard Zinn. I've drawn my conclusions about the underlying nature of this country from sources like that, and of course, the writings of Noam Chomsky and others. Our propensity for war and violence as both a nation and a society have very deep roots.

My frustration with our political system really came into focus with Barack Obama, 2008. For the first time in my life I actually contributed financially to a political campaign. I read both of his books in print at the time and had become enthralled with him and the possibilities going forward. It took about two months (after his innoguration) for me to realize that we'd been swindled. I won't tick off the list of disappointments; you know them as well as I. Nor will I deny him his claim to "only being human" or ignore the uphill battle he faced with an intransigent Republican Party, but I felt he could have done far more, especially in his first two years with a majority in both chambers. I couldn't bring myself to vote for him in 2012. As far as I was concerned, getting involved in politics was a waste of time and energy.

And then came Sanders. I had tracked Bernie for years, even before Obama came along. With his early successes (the large crowds, the uuuuge war chest comprised of many small donations) I found myself hooked again. I railed against the media's treatment (that is, censorship) of Sanders and the liberal media's fawning over Hillary. And of course, we know the outcome.

So all of this to explain my somewhat jaundiced view of politics in general and frustration with the Democratic Party's amazing ability to shoot itself in the foot at every critical juncture.

Deepspace, I could go on, but I need to get out of here. I take it an email type dialogue isn't something you are disposed toward and I respect that. Another option is to do what we've been doing and continue the thread of a Hartmann post long after most if not all the readers have gone off to something current. I don't know how long Thom's site leaves these threads active online, but it's obviously for a while. From time to time, if you'd like to drill deeper into a topic I'd be pleased to join you for a discussion.

Stay safe in your travels. Thanks for the reply.

Hey Outback,

Damn, it's really late! Finally got a chance to read and respond -- been prepping for a busy summer of traveling. Much appreciate your rants of frustration and disgust though. Sorry to clog up your computer screen again, but here's one of my own, rising from the bowels of hell, about the pitfalls of identity politics that you mentioned. Hope it doesn't end up too longwinded:

The amazing roller-coaster ride of Bernie's historic campaign naturally left a lot of people reeling with conflict and frustration in the wake of bitter defeat, not the least of whom was me. We are emotional beings as much as we are thinking beings; and when it comes to politics, it seems that feelings trump logic (pun intended). Perhaps that is the root of motivation for "identity voters."

The essence of representative democracy is that people must choose another complex human being to act in their stead, so it's understandable how emotionally invested we become and how much of our own complexities we project onto our chosen candidates, as if they can somehow solve all the intrinsic problems of collective human nature (society) that heretofore were unsolvable. It's too tempting to downplay their faults and extol their virtues, to build a false narrative and run with it despite evidence to the contrary.

Typical politicians are well aware of this phenomenon and are experts at appealing to emotions and, by extension, at manipulating thoughts. That's their job, after all, and there's really nothing inherently wrong with it ...if they (mostly) have our best interests at heart! Managing the expectations of constituents is just part of the normal process to accomplish the compromises necessary to realize policy goals in a large and diversified legislative body with so many different viewpoints. Politics 101.

The wrongness of it all arises when politicians harbor evil intent in their selfish, greedy, shriveled-up hearts, and when their ego-centric pretexts compromise the truth at such fundamental levels that they are basically asking -- in Trump's case, demanding -- their starry-eyed followers to abandon reality altogether and live in a complete fantasy world of false notions, unrealistic expectations, and kernels of facts taken wildly out of context and blown way out of proportion. Sound familiar?

Hillary, unfortunately, was a victim as well as a purveyor of such disinformation; although, contrary to wicked and mean-spirited right-wing spin, I do not believe for a second that she was criminally minded or exploited public perception to the delusional Nth degree that Trump, the so-called master showman, is so gleefully willing to do. And of course, corporate media and the wild-west internet are equally complicit in promoting titillating fallacies and salacious scandals to attract more eyeballs, at the expense of boring and uncomfortable truths.

Bernie is not a typical politician -- daring to stick to the unvarnished truth, refusing to take bribes, fighting valiantly for people's rights. Therefore, the entire establishment was against him. The Democratic Party (stupidly), the Republican Party, Hillary's campaign (unsurprisingly), the corporate mainstream media, Wall Street billionaires, and the ubiquitous, right-wing, bubble-sphere, echo-chamber on the internet -- everyone but a yuuuge segment of a fed-up populace sick to death of the entire ridiculous circus -- did everything in their ungodly power to stop him. Yet, despite the steep odds, he almost made it ...almost. That in itself is amazing, given the political climate, or perhaps because of it.

So, yeah -- very frustrating! We almost took back our democracy! Bernie is a rebel and a fighter in the same mold as our forefathers, who bled and died on the battlefield to hand us a nation that was built first and foremost on the principle of a People's government and on the practicality of an economy balanced between the "commons" and "free enterprise" -- not lopsided, runaway, monopolistic, crony capitalism/fascism!

That is exactly what he means by "democratic socialism," and that is exactly what all his detractors and naysayers always get so wrong. It is not pure socialism; it is not pure capitalism; it is the healthy balance between the two, which benefits the most citizens possible, not just the top percent. "We all do better when we all do better." -- Paul Wellstone

Our founders figured out that simple, deeply insightful concept long ago, as did Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and so many other flawed but truly progressive politicians in our history, in the executive branch as well as on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

(Neither should we forget that Bill Clinton and Obama also championed a lot of progressive policies that helped a lot of regular people, even though they made serious mistakes, failed in many ares, were center-right, and were, regrettably, tainted badly by too many big money interests -- largely due to rapacious decisions by right-wing Supreme courts down through the decades, which crudely changed the rules of the game in favor of wealthy elites and their corporate cash-cows, basically making political bribery legal -- virtually the only Western democracy having done so, on a scale previously unimaginable.)

Liberal progressivism has always been smack dab in the center of the majority of the electorate mindset -- not to the "left" as corporate pundits would have us believe today with all of their slanted, psycho-babble punditry. By all historical standards, we grew out of the fertile soil of a liberal democracy. That's what has made America great -- not Trump's racist, "America first" crap, which is only meant to divide people with hate and fear, while a murderous gang of privileged thieves holed up in their gilded towers redistribute the wealth of a nation into their grubby little hands.

Noam Chomsky in a recent BBC interview on "Newsnight" put it succinctly, "The most remarkable thing about the 2016 election was Bernie Sanders, not Trump."

So, I'm with you; it's not about "identity politics," about one individual; it's about all of us together. As Bernie always says, it's up to us to continue the revolution. He showed us the way.

Idaho is a beautiful state! Thanks for your contact info, Outback. Fair warning: (haha, having called for unity of purpose) personally, it seems I'm becoming more and more of a jaded, battle-scarred, feckless, and goalless wanderer in the wilderness, living in the moment, and notoriously anonymous and unreliable when it comes to all things internet, other than researching and writing stuff here and there.

End of long rant (mercifully).

Once again Wall Street grows fat at the expense of Main Street. Many will die and suffer so that a relative few can amass meaningless wealth. Has it occurred to anyone that the inflation of stock since November is nothing more than a collusive fraud that should be investigated?

The big lie that Trump will unleash the economy has given a few extremely wealthy fascists and a couple mega banks the excuse to leverage markets upwards. These same scoundrels will quickly cash in on gains all in unison and then boom, look out. It's going to be as ugly as 1929. Goodbye 401K's.

BTW: Putin is using the complete idiocy of the Teapublican Party to destroy our country. This is modern warfare and much more deadly than terrorism...wake up America.

By now it should be a given that we live under the Wall Street Owned One Party System or as I like to call it: WOOPS! Unfortunately many of my fellow left leaning citizens still identify with the Democratic Wing of WOOPS. It should also be a given that the fully owned seats occupied by the baby "bulls and bears" appointed there through the power of vast sums of wealth are corrupt across 99.9% of the Washington political spectrum. Sorry this is not news. We know they all are corrupt in one way or another and the Democrats are the worst of all because they sold out to join the one party system! The Democrats are also very rich members of Congress who vote only for the good of their financial patrons who are also their sole constituents. It would be interesting to see how many Democrats own stock in health related companies - most interests probably purchased after the 2008 presidential election as they rushed into office knowing that Wall Street was about to become the proud parents of a new and improved (with respect to profits) health care industry being further and to a much greater extent subsidized by the average American taxpayer. That is the goal of our one corporate political party system - to enrich the donor class. We need to quit talking about the Washington crowd like they are a divided by an aisle crowd. They are not. Except for a few issues that serve as window dressing and click bait to lure willfully ignorant voters they all pull together while hoping they are pulling the proverbial wool over our eyes as they pick our pockets and complete the destruction of what was once at least the semblance of an indirect democracy. If one continues to believe that the Democrats represent We, The Rabble then one is sadly mistaken. Just like the Republican Wing they represent THEIR DONORS. Until we stop treating them like they are substantially different our nation shall remain their captive. We will continue clawing each others' eyes out in a collapsing economy hell bent upon the destruction of our species and most others in the looming finale of peoplekind. A species whom has arrogantly believed that it is beyond the laws of nature operating in The Universe. Even these loathsome political types know full well that they are signing the death warrants for all of humanity. They are all simply addicted to The Gawd Almighty Dollar and all of the so alleged happiness of ownership it brings them. I once knew a woman who was addicted to money, cigarettes and heroin in that order. She gave up cigarettes and heroin but could not give up her family's money. The sad part is that both cigarettes and heroin are actual physical substances and as we know The GAD is just an idea and for its most devoted players money is just a way to keep score. It always gets down to the most basic of questions: What won't someone do or not do for the right sum of money? Apparently being elected to Congress or as POTUS are the numbers one and two things to do.

Thom, thanks for the great info. I wish i had a comprehensive article on the GOP attempts to sabotage the ACA by threatening to defund the risk funds (rails) for participating insurance cos.

I see stories about Rubio's attempnto defund these but cant find the results.

The right swore an oath to our Constitution, turn around and go against it. How can that just slide?

#OU812: Condemnation without investigation is the truest form of ignorance.

-- Einstein

I don't think that anyone believes that this bill will pass, but most people believe that it does tell us exactly who Republcans really are. Not that we thought anything different.

I'll have to admit, I'm not to familiar with many Irish phrases, but it does appear that Trump supporters seem to believe that Trump's ass is the Blarney Stone!

stopgap: Ha! That puts a whole new spin on the Irish phrase, "pissed," as in piss drunk.