Sigh. Another armchair pundit who believes balancing societal forces is an easy task. Only easy in front of a computer monitor!

The elephant in the room is that Mr. Trump has at least 100,000 fans ready to die for his cause. He need only say "Occupy federal buildings" and there will be 100 Waco-like situations in the USA. This threat is affecting the decisions made by the saner people in Washington DC. They need to tread very carefully in these troubled times.

The primary system was changed circa 1970 because of the bad optics of the smoke filled back rooms of the political parties. American democracy was losing credibility back then. The solution was to open the primaries up to the people. Maybe it worked for a while, but obviously it is not working now.

Even today, the Democrat Party is chastised for keeping 20% of its delegates for the back rooms.

Very unlikely the two parties are going back to the old ways. Even if they did, it would only create a different kind of political problems.

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Rather than shout from the sidelines at the Democrats to score touchdowns, many the saner Americans should start building a new kind of democracy:

https://medium.com/discourse/tiered-democratic-governance-3f36a8f45660

To start building, the early builders not not get permission from the political elite, the wealthy, the academics, or the majority. They can start building today.

But to believe that the above groups can somehow fix this mess because the people are shouting at them is only wishful thinking.