The biggest political shock awaiting us is the massive disruption of the major party nominating conventions next summer, when thousands of angry citizens descend on Tampa and Charlotte demanding a reality test.
The two major parties are completely bankrupt zombie organizations and this election may be their last stand – if they even survive the conventions. Neither of them can come to grips with the reality-based issues of the day: epochal financial and economic contraction, peak energy (and many other resources), climate change, the absence of the rule of law in banking, and generational grievance… Both parties can only promise the return to a bygone status quo that is largely mythical.
Neither party cares about rule of law. If they did, thousands of investment bank executives would already be in prison. But instead, they ignore the law and the Constitution in their venal and corrupt attempts to stay in power.
Kunstler is correct. Both parties are on their last legs. I agree that protests at the 2012 conventions (both of them) will probably make the 1968 Chicago Convention look like a cub scout meeting. Actions of the police in Chicago in 1968 was officially ruled a “police riot.” Sen. Abe Ribicoff denounced “gestapo tactics” of the police in a speech on the convention floor. Mayor Daley yelled “fuck you, you jew bastard” at him. This clearly demonstrates how tissue-thin the supposed liberalism of the elites is. And that hasn’t changed.
But the country has.
Abe Ribicoff was a rarity then and his breed is nearly excinct now in both parties.