I've never done anything like this before, but this Sidney Blumenthal piece in The Guardian is so good, and captures what's ruining any chance for anything resembling democracy in the U.S. to occur in the near future so well, that I can't resist putting a link to it here.
If you're reading this, you know that I mostly write about democratic theory. But any sort of democracy--even the quite skimpy version available in the U.S. since it's earliest days--requires at least a modicum of sanity and a dollop of self-worth among the electorate. Those elements don't seem to be available in sufficient amounts in one of our two major parties at present to support elections.
To understand, what I mean, one really should read this. Sadly, it seems that sometimes you just have to say out loud, "Theory, Shmeory."