Or are Republicans the "past sell by" party?
The 2-party system kinda works, I think.
The "loyal opposition" is a lovely idea. I personally bow to this daily mantra: "What if everything I know is wrong?" A.k.a., whaddaIknow?
In the U.S., the worshipped balance of powers is practical genius: How else can a diverse society compromise and advance?
And then we have today's Republicans in America.
They're no longer sane nor intellectually trustworthy.
Instead, they're desperate. For a very obvious reason.
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Demographic trends are showering urine on their parade ... and they don't have an answer.
"White" privilege will shift into "everybody" privilege ... within what, a decade? Maybe two?
I just don't think there's a marchable anthem here: "Woe is me because I happen to be white." Yeah, probably not....
I'm white. I know I had advantages because I slid out into a white-majority nation.
I got the benefit of the doubt loads of times (wasn't arrested when in fact I was breaking the f**ing law).
I squeaked into an Ivy League university ... thanks to a caring high school teacher who could tip the scales in my direction. But he would have, I'm sure, done the same thing, proudly, enthusiastically, for whomever he considered a-mind-with-potential ... whatever their complexion.
Or if not him (because we're all locked into our own generation's stereotypes and biases), then the next teacher of the same ilk.
Here was a wake-up call for me, just 2 years ago.
We were working with a client in the U.S. who helps the world's burgeoning census of refugees. This client does extraordinary work in tough circumstances ... around the world! And we surveyed their donors: about 90% were either Independents or Democrats. There were almost no Republicans chipping in.
I now feel like I hold a crystal ball.
The U.S. Republican party is simply too inflexible, too inbred, and too politically irrelevant to matter much longer. This party will end up like a sand bank with countless dying fish (its supporters) ... the sooner the better.
So political progress can begin again in America?