"THE U.S. POLITICAL SYSTEM IS NOT BROKEN....BUT BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES HAVE CALCIFIED...."
He really will not tackle deeper issues, recent or older, here; he sees all as hunky dory if only the parties would get it together.
He fails to see, or better, refuses to discuss, that always, since the beginning really, say 1776 and before, structural problems have enabled party problems to be blamed, rather than structural ones.
He takes a broad historical perspective. Goes way back into history, everywhere, back to Rome, etc.
Reminds one of Niall's gyrations.
He talks, every few pages or so, about things he claims neither party's politicians will talk about..........................and points at other recent doleful financial and geopolitical trends the average American can know little about................
Yet, he mentions the Civil War, a hello long standing structural problem here, only once, p 124, for a tangential non point about oil.
Why have politcal parties calcified?
When did that start? (He wants to imply it is somehow a recent development, in an otherwise virtuous political history.)
Why?
Take a guess.
He does talk about structural problems in ch 6 somewhat, but backs away from calling it other than party schlerosis.
At p 156, he sets out his theory from 40 years ago, in a sentence, if subsequent history does not correspond, he calls it a schlerosis of the party system, not the political system structure itself.
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