Reply #2: I believe the ultimate divide in the United States is between...

[newswolf56]

libertarians (note the lower-case "l") and authoritarians. This divide cuts across party differences, religious differences, all economic differences save the ultimate class divide between workers and plutocrats (from the workers' perspective, the latter are all authoritarians.) While there are a few Conservative libertarians -- that is, Conservatives who insist on the right to think for themselves rather than march in ideological lockstep with der Bushler and his Christofascist storm troopers -- most lower-case-"l" libertarians are liberals or Leftists: people who not only insist on the right to think for themselves, but the right to do so in a manner that advances individual liberty through eco-humanitarianism -- precisely what the authoritarian Conservatives so often denounce as "bleeding heart" or "tree-hugger" values.

Today's Conservatives -- an alliance of Christofascists and plutocrats -- are totally authoritarian. Indeed their "model" economic system is a global version of the Nazi/Fascist New Order Mussolini described as "the corporate state."

The extent to which this alliance will retain control of the government depends on (A) whether corporate-run public schools have already dumbed-down the electorate to the point it will accept Christofascist economic analysis (i.e., that ever-worsening poverty and disability is divine punishment for sin) and (B) whether the oligarchy, if genuinely threatened, is sufficiently ruthless to abolish elections.

The key to a Democratic victory in this already-oppressively theocratic context is whether we can develop an economic analysis sufficiently radical to not only energize the party's libertarian core (note once more the lower-case "l"), but to also compete successfully with the Christofascist "we-are-being-punished-for-our-sins" economic model. Our greatest ally in this fight may thus be the newly radicalized break-away labor movement.

Alas -- given the methodical dumbing-down of the electorate by both corporate schools and corporate media, given too the fact that all Yehvehistic religion is at least incipiently authoritarian -- I do not have much hope. And there is also the dread reality that the present regime is already the most viciously tyrannical administration in U.S. history -- which leaves little doubt what it might do if its power were seriously threatened.


Edit: re-inclusion of accidentally deleted phrase in first paragraph.