Funny

Yeah, makes sense. I'd say part of it is probably a product of short-term business thinking taking over so much and part of it is a consequence of the spectacle dance between neocon and neolib admins swapping places struggling to stay alive. So then you get a guy like Trump whose MO has no apparent sustainability to it, or respect for the existing two-party facade, and becomes this sort of "how much can the empire belligerently reassert itself while he's still in power". Just speedrunning running the empire like a mob boss, which is doing some damage to others but is also hastening the empire's demise, since you can't really finesse it with long-term payoffs when your MO is brazen and belligerent intimidation. It's hard to imagine what the US will look like post-Trump. I don't think it can just go back to swapping out neocon and neolib admins every 4-8 years. And the liberals are too feckless to oppose fascism. So I don't see the bougie electoral system surviving as it is.