General Discussion

is symptomatic of a failed form of government - our form of government. Our two party system is not codified into law. The constitution says nothing specifically about two parties only. George Washington famously warned of political parties. Yet, the constitution does make it clear that the winner takes it all - power is not shared, the majority party has all the power. This guarantees a two party system. Two party systems guarantee that the two parties will nearly always be at odds with each other, and their supporters as well. On rare occasions, they may cooperate - this is not the norm.

The senate is not a democratic institution. It would require radical alteration to become one - a constitutional amendment.

I am a hard core, lefty, liberal progressive. I vote for Democrats up and down the ballot, every election. I wish I knew how to get past the structural defects in our system of government, but I do not.

At this point, I am having a difficult time seeing this country as anything but a failed state. I will keep working to change things, I will continue to vote for Democrats, but things do not look good at this point. Relative to the rest of developed countries, we are doing very poorly in the majority of metrics.