The good news in the most recent primary elections is
that the strong Republicans on the one hand, and the anti-Clinton/Obama theme
of Bernie Sanders on the other, soundly thrashed their opponents (in the cases
of Trump and Cruz in the Republican race) or have mightily frightened the opposing
contender (in the case of Bernie Sanders on the Democrat side). It now appears
that conservative ideas and ideals will be represented in the Republican Party
in 2016 (to the chagrin of the old establishment Republicans) and that
leftist/socialist ideas will carry the day for the Democrats.
So one can truly say that each party is unifying its
base, but the party unification now creates two very different cliffs with a
wide canyon between them at the national level. There will still be moderates
on both sides that will interact with the dedicated conservatives and liberals
in the respective parties, but the general drift of the two parties is to put
more ground between them and have less cooperation and overlap in their
policies.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s it was said that America
was a peaceful, happy democracy because most people did not vote at all since
the two parties shared so many ideas and principles of how government should be
run that citizens felt they didn’t need to vote in order to remain free and
prosperous. But this idea is no longer true and many people now fear losing the
liberties and wealth they had ten years ago.
Bernie’s Democrats want more government handouts and goodies
regardless of what the constitution says and regardless of what the cost is,
and conservatives want much less government involvement and control in their
lives. The divide could not be more clear, nor more threatening to our nation.
