But you describe our duty as citizens in times like these, to try to anchor the country against extremism. We're lost when it becomes truly overwhelming...and if it helps any, inducing that sense of despair and being overmatched is sometimes a deliberate tactic in politics to disempower a group. We should consciously resist if we can.

I think you've described the dynamic of Republican politics for the last several decades to a T. As I recall it, the need to swing right during the primary season has steadily grown since Nixon's Southern strategy. Reagan was pretty consistent between the primary and the general and his presidency, but since then the contrast between a candidate's rhetoric during the primary versus rhetoric during the general has become too huge to ignore. It not only hurts the prospects of the Republicans during the general election, but it causes fracturing in the party because conservatives recognize that they've been played to get their primary votes. When the general election rolls around, they hold their noses and vote for Mitt or the Mitt-equivalent, but they understandably hate it. (For my side, we'll get to Bernie in a minute.)

That manipulation chicken has really come home to roost this election. The base is rebelling against the establishment that it sees as having betrayed it, and the result is Trump and Trumpism. The base hates the GOP almost as much as the Democrats.

I honestly don't think it's the same on the Democratic/Left/Liberal side. The Party hasn't been pushed relentlessly left for decades like the GOP has; in fact it's been dragged right, toward the supposedly virtuous "center" over the same period, giving rise to the belief that America as a whole is getting more conservative (actually just older, but that's another story). Our problem, speaking now as a Progressive, is that the Democratic Party needs to be dragged much farther left. Farther left in absolute ideological terms, but also farther in pragmatic political terms, to counter the GOP's swing to the right. I think if the corporate media gave Bernie Sanders equal coverage with Hillary we'd have a downright alluring story to tell voters, compared to the cynicism and chaos on the Right.

You know, I think a little paranoia about our political system is in order. People aren't imagining their disenfranchisement from power in American politics. The truth is we've become an oligarchy, in which what really matters, and what gets translated into government policy, is what the 0.01% want. If the government seems sometimes to do what you or I want, it's just a coincidence, because some faction of the elite wanted it too. With the rise of the Super PACs, our politics has become a matter of which billionaire's agenda you want to back.

It can be overwhelming.