@Finn dAbuzz,
I no longer stand on the political spectrum. I've had enough. As a 67-year-old man who now has to deal with serious nonpolitical problems of his own making, I feel entitled to resign from the politic culture of this country -- not that I urge anyone else to do so. I'm simply too tired and disillusioned to go along with the charade. My vote has never made a difference, anyway.
Aside from voting and making financial contributions to candidates, my involvement has been mostly that of a spectator. Well, I think the game is fixed, which is just as well since I'd have to violate my conscience to support either party or ideology. The Democratic Party is on the verge of permanent minority status. They're being gerrymandered out of existence, and they'll eventually run out of Big Money as well. Remember
The People's Almanac from the mid-1970's? Among its many features were articles about every country. As I recall, one of the sections in each article was entitled "Who rules?" The section I really appreciated was entitled "Who REALLY rules?" I suspect that if such an article about the U.S. is written, say, 20 years from now, the "Who REALLY rules?" section will indicate that the U.S. is an oligarchy and that a committee of billionaires select the ultraconservative Republican candidates whom they will financially support for public office. This committee will be composed of individuals such as Robert Mercer, who believes that the value of human life depends on the amount of money produced by the individual in question, and the Koch brothers, whose father happened to have been one of the founders of the authoritarian John Birch Society. Nice guys! Money talks and purchases political power.
Here's another statement that is bound to upset some people: Liberals/progressives and conservatives actually share some characteristics in common.
There are extremely decent, even heroic individuals on both sides of the political divide. People on both sides have perfectly understandable reasons for their respective political orientations. Anyone who believes that all the decent people can eventually be persuaded to join the same political party and subscribe to the same political ideology is a fool.
Neither the political right nor the political left is willing to admit that his side has ever been wrong about anything -- especially about a moral issue. People on both sides demonize the other with no recognition that no one can be right all the time. In fact, many progressives and many conservatives resemble those who participate in cults. "The party is always right," "Anyone who isn't a member of the party is inferior," "Liberals/conservatives are always right," "The conservative/liberal movement has never been wrong about anything," blah blah blah. For many liberals liberalism is their religion, and for many conservatives conservatism is their religion. No thanks! As a Christian I've already got a religion. That's enough for me.
Again, I'm not telling anyone what to do. If you're a hardcore conservative/liberal, have at it! But as for me, I'm just an oddball nobody who's no longer interested in participating.
End of rant.