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founding

The more I watch the political situation in the U.S. churn, the less distinction I see in how each side of the political divide operates, writ large. To be clear, I'm not trying to introduce some kind of moral equivalency here, because at least so far there is none in the larger scheme of things. The D's pretty much hold that patch of ground hands down.

I'm talking about the fact that the odious noise from the flanks is driving the narrative and actions on each side, not the moderates, and this puts the advantage on the right, both in terms of the 'structural advantage' that you mentioned, and the drum beat of the constant 'loser narrative' about the left being propagated by the mainstream media. And the D's don't get it that if you want to win, you have to win the middle, since your base alone isn't going to get the job done, no matter how much you energize and fire them up. And if you're going to do that, you'd better start showing yourself to be capable of representing and promoting the values of the denizens of that demographic. Otherwise it will end up being the noise that decides who wins, not the substance...just a bunch of 'Rinos and Dinos' going along for the ride as the extremes battle it out, leaving the folks like me shaking their heads in bewilderment and despair and thinking WTF is the damned point?

Not that I personally would ever consider *not* casting a ballot with every office / proposition marked with my 'choice', however much I may dislike the 'lesser evil' of the moment. But I know a handful of genuinely good and decent people who in '16 and '20 cast ballots sans votes for president and even senators and congressmen, because they were pissed off and dejected by the carnival show our politics has become. And we all know who lower voter turnout or ballot choices left blank favor.

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