"riverman" wrote in message ...

In any case, thats a horrible point of view, as it ensures the status quo.

Sadly, the "horrible point of view," from my point of view, is perpetuating
the strangle-hold status quo that the two major parties have foisted upon
the American electorate. Like Steve said in his reply to you, there will,
eventually, come a time when the Dems and/or Repubs will fade from the
political memory and we will either have a new set of competing parties; or
maybe, we will move to a proportional representation electoral system in
which we will have many competing parties and an entirely different
congressional make-up with the formation of coalitions?

And historically, have Americans ever felt so dispondent about the
policial process?

I would say the answer is, yes. I can imagine the turmoil of the period
just before the start of the Civil War was such a time of despondency.
Though I was too young to grasp the concepts of the Civil Rights movement
and the Viet Nam conflict, as our do nothing Congress was unable to declare
it a war, was also such a time of despondency for the electorate--remember
the turmoil in Chicago at the Dems convention.

If we lose complete faith (in reality, not just rhetorically) in the our
political system, this could be the start of the end of the 'great
experiment'.

We as an electorate have lost faith in our political system many time over
its history, yet we have always rebounded and a somewhat democratic process
has always prevailed. It is very unlikely that we would toss out the baby
with the bath water. We are more likely realize that the water we have been
using was dirty to begin with and seek a new source of water with which to
wash the baby.

Op

--riverman