I guess that depends on perspective. Wouldn't total collapse be the moment of sanity in an insane system?

Maybe that's the too-bilateral thinking ingrained in my reactionary mind from so many years of pass-fail, battle to the death competition.

It brings up a point about the upcoming debates, however. How are we to decide the sane vs insane parts of either side's platforms? In sociology, insanity tends to turn to a disconnect from reality or noncompliance with societal convention.

The current state of societal convention is the Arena of combat over money for the sake of money's interests.

Can we clearly find a distinction between Republicans and Democrats that way?

Does either side stop and question their own assumptions about what they expect for the future (abortion, war, growth, corporate personhood, etc)?

To use Dave Pollard for a second, " we must put aside our differences and work together, furiously,"

Isn't that how corporations became the commonality between the parties? They put aside their own sense of humanity and defaulted to the dollar's desires (job creators, tax breaks, deregulation). Republicans' anti-communism (pro-profit) platforms contributed much of it, but with the help of the so-called 'liberal' media.

I just received the local glossymag from Cedar Rapids public relations. Google's new data center will be getting a 70% tax break for the next 20 years to build it and create a few jobs that will be replaced by AIs soon after. After the 20 years, we'll just change the name of the city to Google Rapids, Inc. In general, the city is to be commended for their housing, greening and flood control efforts since the 2008 flood and 2020 derecho destroyed a lot of properties, but between ADM, Pepsi/Quaker, United Technologies, BAE and Cargill, there's enough corrupt subsidized profit going around to give everyone a fucking flying car, let alone a house and daily cereal bowl.