This article touches on why the United States is the only advanced capitalist country without an electorally viable Labor Party

Here is a fragmentary appearance of a lurch towards an alternative, and not in a particularly socialist vein, but it needs substance

Potentially novel political developments in the near future depend a great deal on the far-from-equilibrium historical conditions now.

Pertaining to "breaking out in hives", for years Democrats have quietly won governorships and statehouses in red and purple states by running candidates who shared the values of voters in their state, not the beliefs of the coastal intelligentsia. I think we are at the end of not just the religious right's power but also of the secular left's political dominance.

Remember Gore Vidal's statement about the Democrats: "It isn’t an opposition party. I have been saying for the last thousand years that the United States has only one party—the property party. It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican."