A few points:

1. Good strong imposition of the rules at the start, Teague. I started a Trump thread last year and it didn't take long until personal comments were made. Your rules are firm and fair.
2. If anyone wants some optimism, I'd like to refer them to Steven Pinker's ENLIGHTENMENT NOW book. He's one of the most intelligent public intellectuals about. There are plenty of his talks on youtube summarising his arguments. But in a sentence, the world has never been as good as it is now for a range of indicators: crime rates, war deaths, wealth, education, longevity, progressive laws, etc. As soon as you compare how things were like 50, 100, 500, 1000 years ago, today looks great!
3. I've been around long enough to see a few dozen elections in USA / UK / Australia so I've learned not to blame the politicians as it's the PEOPLE that keep voting for them. Any anger should be directed at the mechanisms by which people are "informed" by the media, school, entertainment, church, internet, university, etc. See Chomsky  for more on this point.
4. My own position is one of secularism, science education, environmentalism, aggressive fiscal redistribution (e.g. UBI), social libertarianism, and it feels like "my side" has been losing since the Reagan/Thatcher neoliberal revolution of the 1980s. Fox/Newscorp has poisoned the well of public debate and does an extremely effective job at it... e.g. to mobilize sick people to protest against improving their own healthcare, or to get poor people to advocate for tax cuts for billionaires is astonishing. I have a perverse "admiration" for how dirty the right can fight but it saddens me too. Had a Democrat done 1% of what Trump's said/done, there'd be hoards of pitchforks (and worse) on The Mall.
5. One of the issues I wrestle with is 'tolerance of intolerance'... anyone who's listened to Sam Harris will know how to unpack this. It's one of the paradoxes that the left must grapple with. I often agree and disagree simultaneously and still working through that issue.
6. But cheer up DiFers, as the big long picture over 50-100 years is indeed in the right direction. The good guys win in the end... I hope. If they don't, we'll all be outta here soon enough.

was that the movie where they put the experimental high-tech helicopter to good use by spying on a girl doing naked exercises in her apartment?

Thanks for all your answers. Really appreciate it. If Trump pretends to be a beacon of hope to the little forgotten person in flyover states, it's weird that he'd hijack the GOP, the part that obviously (even to an outsider) only represents the wealthiest 1% of the country. That false hope should go down better if offered by a left-wing populist, like say Bernie Sanders. Even an idiot should know Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, etc are wholly bought by corporate lobbyists.

And then massive tax cuts to corporations and billionaires are passed, and the GOP support doesn't budge. The tribalism is so entrenched. And Democrats could promise universal health care, and sick people in rural mid-America will fervently campaign against socialised medicine.

So, yes, Trump offers false hope to poor rural people. Got that. But if a Democrat offered the same false hope, they'd be hated, even though the Democrats can demonstrate an historically (slightly) better track record.

The media has done an excellent job in painting Democrats as in bed with Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Goldman Sachs, Hollywood, etc. But the message that the GOP is in bed with defense contractors, big Pharma, banks, hasn't got through.

I find it fascinating that brainwashing can be done so effectively that someone will act against their own interests. A drowning man will reject the (commie, Chinese, Jewish, liberal, insert hate group here) rope thrown to assist him.

The phenomenon of poor voting for upwards wealth redistribution certainly happens in Australia/UK as well, but to a much greater extent in the USA.

We'll see what happens in the mid-terms... it seems like a no-brainer that there should be a blue-wave after all that Trump has done/said in the last few years, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a swing towards the GOP.

Does the left have any share of the blame? Lame Pelosi/Schumer mainstream DNC? Distracted by identity politics rather than inequality? No charismatic leader to rally around?

calling bootleggers, weren't there rumours of a Peter Jackson's KING KONG commentary, as well as BENJAMIN BUTTON, that were recorded but lost...? Perhaps the NSA has backups, Snowden if you're listening...

As Lindsay Graham correctly said the other day, if the Democrats want to get their guys appointed, they gotta start winning some elections.

Mike Moore was on Real Time last week and claimed the USA was liberal on most issues. He's probably right.

And yet, the GOP are in control of just about everything, everywhere.

But no one tried to reconcile these two facts.

Hilary had much more money, most of the media on her side, all the celebrity, political, and business endorsements, had more experience and qualifications, and got more votes, didn't grab pussies, and still lost.

I guess gerrymandering, voter suppression has something to do with it. Also, the electoral college that favors empty rural states, Fox News, right-wing radio. But still, to an outsider, it's weird that the GOP gets more than 1% of the vote - as this is the percentage of the country they make no bones about representing.

But Britain can't talk. There was a general election in 2017... the Prime Minister Theresa May ran a terrible campaign (just chanted 'strong & stable' for a month, after years of austerity and rising inequality and screwing up Brexit, and still got returned to power. In Australia too, the conservatives keep winning despite being behind in the polls between elections.

The left are just no good at playing the political game. Whereas the right can make Joe Sixpack chant 'getcha govnent hands off my cancer-ridden body' and believe healthcare is against their interests. And support tax cuts for billionaires. It is an impressive con job, but makes one depressed about human nature.

We'll see happens in the mid-terms... blue-wave, red-wave, or status-quo. Any bets? I wouldn't be surprised if nothing much changes. Millennials would have to stop taking photos of their cereal and go and vote...