I wasn't going to post this article

[canetoad]

Then read this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028270478 expressing the very real worry that many of you are experiencing about the election result.

The article is what other nations are reading about the current state of politics in the US. The journalist, Paul McGeogh is a respected Washington correspondent of Fairfax media. Disclaimer: He is very mildly critical of some Dems, but 99% is describing the mess that Republicans have created. It provides a good description of gerrymandering. Long article, below is just a snip, but well worth the read.

Forget Clinton and Trump - America's democracy is broken and they can't fix it

<snip>
In hindsight, that the GOP deception held for so long is remarkable. As set out by The New Yorker's George Packer, it was an impossible construct:

"[2012 GOP presidential candidate Mitt] Romney, who belonged to a class that greatly benefited from cheap immigrant labor, had to pretend to be outraged by the presence of undocumented workers. Lower-middle-class Midwestern retirees who depended on Social Security had to ignore the fact that the representatives they kept electing, like [House Speaker] Paul Ryan, wanted to slash their benefits.

"Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan returned to Indiana and Texas embittered at having lost their youth in unwinnable wars, while conservative pundits like Bill Kristol kept demanding new [wars] – but their shared contempt for liberal elites kept them from noticing the Republican Party's internal conflicts."

Clear proof this deception had been seen through came in the madness of the March primaries, when a Trump supporter told The New York Times: "I want to see Trump go up there and do damage to the Republican Party." And from his buddy: "We're going to use Trump to either take over the GOP or blow it up."