All the major institutions of the nation are under attack and mistrusted, the educational system, the courts, the arts, the government, the unions, the corporations, the financial system, the intelligentsia…everybody is mistrusted except the armed forces.

Yeah, the armed forces are trusted. I don’t think that’s an accident either.

As for laissez-faire democracy, isn’t that what the founders affectionately called “the rabble”? America has never trusted the hoi polloi, that’s why we’re modeled on a Roman Republic, not an Athenian Democracy. Well, I’m with you. If the mob actually elects Trump fair and square, then I say let him serve his term. We will profit from the lesson.

I agree though, the system is self-correcting. The fairy tale I tell myself so I can sleep is that Conservatives across the country will reject Trump even if nominated. The more states he wins, however, the harder it is to believe the fairy tale. I will take some solace in that if Trump were to win, God forbid, the left will block every dumb thing that comes out of his mouth. And they’d be totally within their right to do so. I might even clap.

I’m not quite ready to drink the left’s kool-aid, but damn it’s getting awful hot and humid over here on the moderate right.

I guess that’s why, while I find Trump disturbing in so many ways, I’m not actually afraid of the possibility that he’ll become President. First, I think it’s a very low possibility, if democracy is allowed to work–I’m an idealist that way. And second, even if he does, the normal institutional checks–not a thumb on the scale of an election–will rein in Trump’s worst impulses.

Which leads to the fact that it’s disturbing how little faith these “party elites” have in both the country’s institutions and its people. [James Earl Jones voice] I find their lack of faith very disturbing. Christ, they should just butt out and let us have our election in peace! (the last bit was in normal voice).

I’m rooting for the outsider on the Democratic side. Go Bernie!

I know this is supposed to be well-intentioned checks-n-balances within the parties, and the parties are supposed to be stabilizing forces. But how well is that working out in Congress these days, with one party determined to blow everything up? The Senate isn’t looking much like the teacher’s lounge in Congressional middle-school these days. And let’s not even go into the Republican Primary: Blitzkrieg to the White House 2016.

Stability, not so much on the GOP side.

A little too much stability on the Democratic side.

Two sides of the same coin.

I would say I support laissez-faire democracy: Universal suffrage, take the vote and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t see any moral alternative–either you believe that self-determination through democracy is a good thing, or you don’t.

Which is a pretty scary position to take at times like these, isn’t it? And that’s the very thing that a demagogue like Trump is effectively exploiting with his strongman message to scared authoritarians. He’s not very subtle when he implies we’ve been enjoying a little too much democracy in recent decades. But he’s just the guy to Make America Grate Again!

This is what I was getting at with supers though.

Hillary without supers: 760
Sanders without supers: 546

OK, not quite a horserace, but certainly closer than:

Hillary with supers: 1,221
Sanders with supers: 571

The irony is if the GOP had super-delegates this year, it would be easy to block Trump from getting a runaway nomination. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

American socialism at its worse.