Letting it all burn down won't usher in an utopic constitutional convention of the people where we right all the wrongs.

Sitting out the election process is exactly what the pro-status-quo representatives and governors want, because that makes it easier to manipulate a desired election result. We've seen quite plainly over the decades that low voter turnout does not motivate the parties themselves to push electoral reform or different candidates. Those will only come with high turnout in the party primaries to get progressives nominated and elected at the state level where the authority lies to set the election rules (such as getting away from first-past-the-post). It may even require voting in Republican primaries depending on the district.

But during the 1980s and early 1990s, fears of a relentless Republican juggernaut pressured those left of center to take a defensive stance, focusing on the immediate goal of electing Democrats to stem or slow the rightward tide.

I wonder what might have happened between 1968 and 1992 that might have led them to do that

In those 24 years there was one Democratic president, who actually was pretty left wing (esp in American politics), who only served one term because he was widely unpopular with the electorate because the electorate in America at the time was a bunch of central-America-bombing Israel-supporting proto Nazis. Remember 1972, when Nixon of all fucking people got 520 electoral votes and McGovern of all fucking people got 17?

I don't think it was just some weird Democratic-party plot to tack to the right. I think it was survival. I actually do think that there's a golden opportunity now, with the way the electorate has shifted, for real lefty candidates to gain much more traction than the neoliberal crap, and I think most of the DNC hasn't figured that out and just gets mad at it instead. Cf Bernie Sanders. But still, that doesn't mean that even back in 1992 they were doing it on purpose to betray the electorate; I think it was the opposite.

True, the last Democrat was really unsatisfying, but this one is better; true, the last Republican didn’t bring destruction on the universe, but this one certainly will. And, of course, each of the “pivotal” Supreme Court justices is four years older than he or she was the last time.

This is about the point where I stopped reading. I was searching for some sort of concrete indication of why they're saying that the Democrats are continuing to tack steadily to the right, when to me the arc of Clinton -> Obama -> Biden looks like exactly the opposite (quick rundown of why: tons of NATO bombing -> some drone strikes -> weak verbal-only opposition to Israel and sanctions on settlers) (or: welfare-to-work -> income inequality is flat at least -> big wage growth at the bottom end and massive increases in corporate tax). But no, they're just repeating the assertion and the narrative, over and over, without explaining (anywhere that I saw) why they are asserting it's that way.

Eh. The two parties used to be a lot more similar, never with Clinton or Obama was the dem-or-else mentality particularly strong. Swing voters have gotten rarer, but they used to be quite common. That's a person that will vote for either party, depending on the individual. This was sensible because they weren't as far apart from each other.

I mean, particularly with Obama vs Romney. Obama's signature achievement? Obamacare. Romney's signature achievement from his time as governor? Romneycare. And they were extremely similar, policy-wise. These folks tended to get called "moderates", and it didn't really much matter which party they were a "moderate" of.

Now the choice is between one of those old moderates, same as we've had, and a wannabe dictator. So, Trump makes things special.

The labor movement is stronger today than any time in my life of forty years. It's not what it was a century ago, but what is?

It's honestly tiresome. I was caught up in the fervor of the Trump era, when it felt like the Democrats would finally, once it was their turn, start enacting fundamental changes to fix this mess of a country, but now that the combination of the pandemic stresses and the opportunity that results from chaos has died off, I more clearly remember the Obama administration and can watch the Biden administration affirm, they have no desire to make any changes necessary to truly help people or right the incredible wrongs of this nation.

I'm tired of liberal scolds who like to pretend Biden didn't write the Clinton Crime Bill, hasn't routinely granted more funding to police when possible, hasn't increased the military budget and so on.

Tired of them acting like Biden will ever even attempt to fix the fundamental problems with this nation, like FPTP voting, lack of single payer healthcare, overly mitarized police and wanton expansion of civilian surveillance.

I know he's one of the best President's to date on climate and that people in the bottom quartile of income in the US have seen pay rises. It's good, but it's not enough. The Democrat's method of incremental change feels like platitudes in the face of wanton use of power by the Republicans. As if they feel they need to be cautious and careful in their use of power to seem more legitimate in the public instead of wielding the office in a way that makes sweeping benefits to Americans.

I don't think Biden is all that great, I have zero faith he'll ever do anything to truly prevent this country from sliding to fascism in the future, he'll just maintain the status quo and kick the ball to the next guy, just how every other Democrat does it and his successor surely will too.

So vote blue, whoopty doo, what else is there to do?