Dave, you and I have a passion, and just because it is not moving as fast as we like things to go, that should not be a reason to not apply our knowledge and vision to helping this become a better world, using words. I am glad you are still dreaming of a better world.

The sand bag represents political power that is not moving at all.

The nation is lucky that we got Biden in position, and not Bernie Sanders. Even when both could have been implementing the exact same agenda, Sanders would have been the red flag the Republican bulls needed to charge more than they do now. With Biden, there is a chance for calm.

* The Republicans are seeing one-party rule in their future.

* A good number of Republicans are seeing one-party rule in their future.

Please recognize how the first sentence is very winner-take-all verbiage, and how the second sentence is very equal-representation verbiage, more accurate.

Am I optimistic? No, because the winner-take-all system only works when the loser agrees to the outcome. Al Gore is in that respect my hero. What he did was move beyond standard human grace.
(I did not like that he had an episode of outbursts a year later because others had told him that would be the normal human behavior; he was fine had he just remained himself).

The two-party system has had its best time. The world is not waiting for the American Bully just because folks are telling each other that that's the normal things to do given the circumstances.

If we communicate this well enough to all involved, then we can move forward in peace. But we do need change of our political system, the symptoms of the political illness are clear.

I hope you recognize that the better world starts with describing the truth and no longer describing the perceived truth. Instead of Republicans thinking X, Y or Z, we need to appoint the right group within the Republican field thinking X, Y or Z.

That brings me to the ultimate outcome:

There are true Republicans in the Republican Party and there is the group that hijacked it. Both groups within the Republican party are asking for help and they are not getting it. There are things that should be done.

Sorry to declare this here with just one sentence, but TDG will not work (in time for reducing the Republican stress). Proportional voting, even started at the local level, will help relay their stresses toward actual expression of their political desires they can feel good about.

Here is my conclusion:

Not-being represented (well) is the feeding ground for this group within the Republican Party. It is not based on a political agenda item. It is an extracurricular item that can undermine the entire system.

These folks are not per se Republican at heart; they are angry and upset people that recognize that they are not being represented in this system
(in their words: they are on the losing side while they should have won; in my words: they are not represented while they should be represented).

Proportional voting deflects all that anger and stress.

Look at European nations with fascists parties around the table of decision makers. They seem to only get tidbits of what they want and yet these tidbits give them the feeling they can do some things.

Here with us, it is all or nothing. It’s continuously win or lose. And when the nothing is heralded all the time as what folks are getting while this is supposed to be a democracy and it is their right to be represented well, then it is obviously time to go to war. Winner-take-all is therefore a benevolent war system. Particularly compared to a dictatorial system it is far more benevolent, but the potential for a war system it is nevertheless.

When I got here in the 1990s, my reaction was, after being here for about a year: "Oh my God, there is a civil war going on here and nobody calls it that way."

Discovering that Americans actually live three years shorter on average than what was being reported (because certain deaths are not counted in the US numbers, so the numbers are cooked) only made me further aware that Americans lie to themselves (are being lied to by their representatives); the winner-take-all system makes spin extremely important. This nation has a built-in propaganda aspect, and likely has been ever since Woodrow Wilson turned on that propaganda machine.

Let's just hope that the folks that are really upset do not take the spin of this system, and make our nation spin out of its natural control.

Keep on writing, Dave. You have a good voice. We need people like you speaking up.