The Heffalumps are busy trying to make America safe for isolationist bigots who have seldom, if ever, seen anyone (except, perhaps, on that cultural wasteland of broadcast television) whose first language was not English; or who did not share Protestant, or at least Christian, upbringing and disdain for others' values; or who preferred to work with his/her mind instead of his/her hands; or whose melanin content differs from his/her own. There are exceptions, but they are extraordinarily rare among party activists, and completely absent from both the Presidential and other national-office campaigns. Living here in Redneckistan (with a neofascist local newspaper that shares ownership with the only commercial VHF television station in town... and we're talking about nearly a quarter of a million within twenty miles of where I'm sitting at the moment) has been difficult, but not as difficult as living in Oklahoma City was.
The Jackasses are busy trying to grab power from the current generation of isolationist bigots so that they can impose their own version. The party's activists share a collective disdain for anyone who did not grow up in a top-10 SMSA; or who has ever served in the military (especially as an officer), or engaged in a trade without being in a union; or who does not wear some badge of discrimination on a flashing-neon armband; or who ever expresses any opinion in favor of enabling exceptional talents to flourish. There are exceptions, but they are extraordinarily rare among party activists, and completely absent from both the Presidential and other national-office campaigns. Living here in a small Democratic enclave in Central Redneckistan (with a local liberal/progressive community that is — in the long tradition of the Left — more interested in, and better at, interfactional disputes than actually putting forth any workable solutions and then actually working for them) has been difficult, but not as difficult as living in DC was.
At present, I'm more pissed off at the Heffalumps, but I'm nonetheless extremely unhappy with the Jackasses. I'd wish a pox on both their houses, but that's a contagious disease... both biologically and politically. And thanks to generations of election fraud and dead-hand control, the only other choice(s) on the ballot will make the Looney Party look positively sensible. Ultimately, though, the current election system is about attaining power for its own sake — not for its exercise beyond the personal benefits of having power. This has been a major theme of every election to which I've paid attention, and that's just short of four decades' worth. (More than a few political scholars of varying ideologies agree that Carter's greatest accomplishment was just getting elected... and it goes downhill from there.)
Both major-party candidates, and their campaigns, and their partisan appendages, and the media and interest groups that purport to report on/influence these elections, desperately need to understand both the literal meaning and the context of this famous line from 1984:
The object of power is power.
In its literal sense, this statement explains far more than one might want to understand about elections and the urge to fill the abuse-of-power vacuum. Its context is even more disturbing, as it concerns the motivation and mechanisms cynically used by the Inner Party to keep power. Too often, any Rawlsian veil of ignorance is self-imposed hypocrisy and/or stupidity, and instead reflects a disturbing tendency toward dead-hand control and toward reifying inherited wealth, power, and privilege.
I am not so idealistic that I believe political parties can be dispensed with; all factions, ideologies, etc. will eventually coelesce into collectives. In short, political "parties" of some kind are inevitable. The ones we've got, however, are not. There are far too many real issues that desperately need attention; we don't need to be spending our energy on dividing each other regardless of any issues that matter.