The people at the bottom know the system better than anyone and they know exactly who is screwing them. None of that establishment bs is believed by the people. That anger is what gave us Trump, people want to destroy the system because they know it doesn't listen to them. They are so frustrated with the system they would rather have Trump. Only the people getting paid well to go along with the system are still buying that crap. What should be really scary to you is even that well-paid class is starting to turn because even they are starting to feel the squeeze as all the money flows to its final source. The rich will become victims of their own success because the suffering they cause is very real and watching your family and friends suffer too will piss you off when you know the system is rigged to keep you down.

@JesseBoren True or not, what you said has absolutely nothing to do with the OP or what I said.

I also never said they had to divide the people only that is their purpose now in this system. The 2 parties no matter how or why they started are in fact now just an arm of the elite that rule. They are using the 2 parties to divide the people into us and them camps over social issues while they absolutely ignore the overwhelming will of the people on economic issues. They also use the media and the FBI, police and all other forms of power they have to stir discontent and create the narrative they want. It's called Manufacturing Consent. The 2 parties have been pushing this us vs them narrative so much there is little empathy left on either side. They have done a great job at pissing the people off but the last thing they want is someone to step in and expose the lie. The further away from the bottom, you are the longer it will take you to see it's all a lie. They need that well-paid class to believe in the system more than anyone because they are the class that helps them enslave the masses. They must be brainwashed or the guilt alone would bring it down.

@JesseBoren Stupidity, apathy, white women, Russian interference, and pissy Bernie folks who took a "watch this, fuck us" attitude and voted for Trump or didn't vote at all. That is how Trump won.

@JesseBoren when you say that the main purpose is to keep people divided and then say that you never said “they had to divide the people only that is their purpose now...” it sounds contradictory.

No in a healthy democracy there are many parties. That forces them to make coalitions that make a true democracy. We do not have a democracy, it has been lost. We live in an oligarchy. You should really look at Europe to see what a healthy democracy looks like, the ones with more parties are clearly better democracies. We still have the ability to restore the democracy but we do not have one under this system. They ignore the will of the people at every turn, the people will not stand for it much longer. You are fighting a war you can not win. The more successful the system is at oppressing the people the more anger that builds. Look at how much it's grown since 2016. You are living in a bubble that believes all the anger is just over Trump, but that anger was there long before Trump. The more the people are repressed the stronger it will become and the more violent it will end. Just look at history, the pattern repeats over and over. It is inevitable as surely as the sunrise. Trump just sped the process up like I knew he would. I kinda hoped he would win because of what I knew it would unleash, I just wasn't sure we could survive him, still not a 100% but it's looking like we will. I knew it would end up being much better for the average person if we can just make it to the other side.

@JesseBoren I note that what I said applied to multiple parties. As to the rest, again, true or not, it has nothing to do with what I said.

If the Dems are wise and well-meaning enough, which I really doubt, to nominate Bernie, then your theory will finally be put to the test for the first time since 1972 when they nominated McGovern. Personally, I think Bernie could and probably would beat Trump if nominated, even with the whole corporate media machine against him, which they would predictably do as well as the Dem party not giving Bernie much or any support. But we will never know unless he gets nominated. My hunch is that if Bernie got nominated and allowed to be in the prez debates, unlike Nader who never got that chance, that most of the eligible non-voters, who are mostly poor and lean left, would come out and vote for him. That is the factor that would defy your analysis of lefties being such a minority on the bell curve. Because in that scenario what counts is who votes and who doesn't, not the normal bell curve of political opinion in America.

@TomMcGiverin Please don't mention Nader to me. Everything since January 2001 is his fault. The arrogant prick.

If I had a time machine and a baseball bat... let's just say, I would return to early 2000 and make sure Nader couldn't screw the election over for Gore.

@Paul4747 Nader didn't lose it for Gore. A bunch of old people accidentally voting for Buchanan instead of Gore on the butterfly ballots, plus the Supreme Court is what lost it for Gore, along with a shitty campaign by Gore. Quit blaming Nader for it, he was the least at fault of any of those I listed. Looks like we are much the same except for politics, of course. you're obviously not a socialist like me.

@TomMcGiverin See [realclearpolitics.com]

Without needing to click that link, here's the main facts of why Nader defenders are dead wrong:

'The official Florida tally gave Bush the win by 537 votes (48.847 percent to 48.838 percent), while Nader racked up 97,488 votes. The national exit poll asked respondents how they would vote in a two-person race between Bush and Gore. Political scientist Gerald Pomper summed up the results in a 2001 Political Science Quarterly overview: “approximately half (47 percent) of the Nader voters said they would choose Gore in a two-man race, a fifth (21 percent) would choose Bush, and a third (32 percent) would not vote. Applying these figures to the actual vote, Gore would have achieved a net gain of 26,000 votes in Florida, far more than needed to carry the state easily.”

But that is not quite the end of the story. Tony Schinella, a self-described Nader supporter, in a 2004 blog post cited by Disinfo, said we should not apply the national exit poll to Florida, but we instead should look at the Florida exit poll, which showed “the results as Bush 49 percent, Gore 47 percent” in a two-person race.

That looks like Bush would have slightly benefited in Florida from Nader’s absence, but that is not definitive either. The Florida exit poll had a sample size of 1,829. Nader’s support in Florida was 1.63 percent, meaning the pollsters only found approximately 30 Nader voters -- a sample too infinitesimal from which to extrapolate. (Consider that the official margin of victory was 0.009 percent. One voter in the Florida exit poll sample amounted to 0.055 percent, more than the margin.)

In fact, some argue that the national exit poll yielded too few Nader voters for the purposes of analysis. So in 2006, professors Michael C. Herron and Jeffrey B. Lewis conducted a granular “ballot-level” analysis of 3 million Florida ballots, because “ballot images directly reveal voting behavior in its most raw form, unmitigated by hindsight, social desirability, or other intervening affects.”

By looking at the partisan nature of the down-ballot choices made by Nader voters, the two scholars estimated that the Gore-Bush breakdown would have been about 60-40. That’s a slightly smaller ratio than found in the national exit poll, but nonetheless a clear lean toward Gore. Herron and Lewis note this means Nader voters were not all left-wing, yet they still conclude, “Nader spoiled Gore’s presidency only because the 2000 presidential race in Florida was unusually tight.”

The extreme tightness of the 2000 result makes it easy for Green sympathizers to cast blame elsewhere, such as Stein’s point that “many D's voted for greater evil in '00.” That’s a reference to the fact that 11 percent of Democrats voted for Bush, a number many Greens cite in arguing that Gore failed to hold on to his base. But this point ignores that there are conservative Democrats who routinely vote Republican at the presidential level. The same 11 percent snubbed John Kerry in 2004. Even Barack Obama lost 10 percent of Democrats en route to his seven-point 2008 victory.

Anything can be blamed, like Gore’s failure to win Tennessee (a cheap shot, since Gore had shed much of his Southern conservatism by 2000, making Tennessee a reach) or abandoning Ohio late in race, only to lose by a mere 3.5 percentage points.

Lots of factors can be blamed for such a paper-thin defeat. But the fact remains: One of them is Ralph Nader. If he had chosen not to embark on an obviously quixotic campaign, Al Gore would have been elected president.'

My politics defy succinct description. I'm not a Marxist by any means, nor do I believe in collective or public ownership or steering of the economy (to quote a favorite fictional character of mine, "Will you run an engine-lathe for eight unfucking hours for something that calls itself a workers' collective?" ). Nor do I believe in unbridled capitalism. The market, unregulated and unsupervised, has led us to ruin more times than I can easily count.

"Property is liberty", in the words of Prudhomme. People work harder when they have a personal stake in the outcome and when they're rewarded for their effort. This is why capitalism works. It's also why communism didn't; the old saying "As long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we'll pretend to work" is easily understood.

The function of government in a capitalist society is to restrain its excesses and provide a safety net for those who, for whatever reason, fall through the cracks; and to do so non-judgmentally, which is why religious charities can't be given the responsibility (as so many conservatives want to do). Capitalism has successes and failures by its nature. We need to raise the floor, and in principle I don't disagree with some form of UBI. I definitely favor a living wage. It should not be possible to work a 40, 50, or 60 hour week and still be unable to feed and shelter a family. And those who've profited the most from their membership in our capitalist society need to be those who give the most back.

@Paul4747 Let it go man, we're done. Don't make me block you....

@TomMcGiverin Have a good weekend.

Dude, you are absolutely not looking at the real polls, the polls show the public is overwhelmingly progressive when it comes to economics. People want the corruption out of politics, they want single-payer healthcare, free college, student debt forgiveness, and fixing our infrastructure by 80% to 90% margins so the people are not as divided as you think. When it comes to guns and abortion they are divided but the anger they feel over a political system designed to ignore the will of the people even when they agree at such high percentages. We have 2 right winged parties now, there is no center. So I guess you never heard of COINTELPRO

COINTELPRO (portmanteau derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) (1956–1971) was a series of covert, and at times illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.

Recently a former director of the FBI went on Fox News and bragged about how when he joined the FBI it was their mission to keep progressives out of office. Thing is he did not join the FBI until 1976, 5 years after they were ordered by Congress to stop. Conspiracy my ass. it's very well documented.

@JesseBoren Thank you for that mature and well-reasoned perspective.

I'm trying to remember when I insulted you, but I can't. Your arrogance and rudeness are underwhelming. You say you're a "practicing Zen Buddhist"? Keep practicing.

I shall not be wasting any more time engaging with you. Have a nice life,

Oh PS, reported.