Two despised frontrunners, two dying parties and a deeply broken system: How did we get here?

[Autumn]

Trump and Clinton may be the two most hated frontrunners in history, dueling symbols of a duopoly in decay

[div
To paraphrase a great American poet of the 1980s, this is not our beautiful house. We get a tiny breather in the political calendar this week, and it’s a useful moment to take half a step back from the most chaotic and disordered presidential campaign in living memory and ask ourselves the big question: What in the name of Jiminy Cricket is going on here? I spent the week digging into the past for clues to the strange dynamics of the present: To be clear, I did not conclude that Donald Trump is a new Hitler or that Bernie Sanders is a new Lenin, only that the parallels and the discontinuities were instructive.

So here’s what’s happening: Our political system is profoundly broken, and although many of us have understood that for years, this has been the year that fact became unavoidable. Both political parties are struggling through transparently rigged primary campaigns that have made that ludicrous process look more outdated than ever. Nobody cares about the Democratic vote in Wyoming and it’s not going to matter, but when Bernie Sanders dominates the caucuses in that empty, dusty and Republican-dominated state and wins seven of its 18 delegates, doesn’t that sum up the whole damn thing?

Both parties are also struggling to control long-simmering internal conflicts that have come boiling to the surface this year, and in both cases the leadership caste is wondering whether it’s time to burn down the village in order to save it. In the larger analysis, both parties are struggling to ignore the mounting evidence of their own irrelevance. One of them is struggling with that in a more public and more spectacular fashion at the moment, but the contagion is general. In my judgment, Democrats would do well to cancel the Champagne and refill the Xanax.

class="excerpt"]http://www.salon.com/2016/04/17/two_despised_frontrunners_two_dying_parties_and_a_deeply_broken_system_how_did_we_get_here/

A very good read I highly recommend it.

[LiberalElite]

1. except that it states this:

Who’s in second place, in this historic sweepstakes of hate? Hillary Clinton, in the same poll: She was viewed favorably by 31 percent and unfavorably by a mere 52 percent. I see you in the back of the room waving your slide rules, eager-beaver Democrats. And yes, you’re right: Every national survey so far, including that one, shows Clinton beating Trump easily.

I thought it was Bernie who beat Trump easily?

[Autumn]

2. I might have misread that. I took it to mean she beats him in the sweepstakes of hate .

I'll reread it after dinner.

[sarge43]

4. The way I read it

Sanders can't beat the Democratic primary system and won't win the nomination. Clinton is marginally less disliked than Trump and will win the election, if he's the Repug nominee, ie the lesser of two bad choices.

[Rebkeh]

6. They both beat him

But Bernie beats him by a much higher margin. So much so that it's a safer choice considering it would effectively be a vote asking if you fear Trump more than you hate her. It's not a good bet, that's not a match up you want, it's potentially dangerous.

I like the article in that it explains that two of the most hated people are .... winning?



If every candidate was hated, that would make sense, but that's not the case.

[silvershadow]

3. Well the Third Way sure had a lot to do with it. nt

[cantbeserious]

5. This Revolt Has Been Building For Years - The DWS, DNC, DLC, Third-Way Has Only Themselves To Blame

eom

[thereismore]

7. A political land shark with no ideological compass.

Guess who that is.