I said from the beginning here that politics is a punk's game, remember? I wouldn't discourage those who wanted to try it nor denigrate their idealism but I learned from a lifetime in public affairs that with few exceptions one side was not significantly different from the other: elites disparaging or disdaining those who work with their hands, wealth and privilege always pulling the strings, and identity politics this time right out of the blocks : "I'm rich, look at me. "I'm very rich."

I made no reference to Bush's eight within context of incremental change over the last 50 years. It's all of a piece; one party not different from the other in trying to shore up your empire with globalization and foreign adventures that bludgeoned your finest, left rust belts, jobs shipped off to Asia, no middle class progress for 40 years, elites at top licking all the cream. There's nothing mythical about dysfunctional Congress nor Putin interference as trivial, as you claimed earlier.

The president didn't plunge the nation into despair. What did it was a continuum of unrepresentative governance looking almost solely after itself and publics pulling their hair said a pox on them all, off with their heads, let's start all over again. My faith hasn't changed in the least about "will of the people." A majority of Americans apparently saw Trump as a grease ball and voted against him. If that isn't will of the people, what is?

Your take on executive orders is interesting to say the least. In a democratic society the function of political leadership is to do what the people want, and the test of performance is winning at election time. Americans gave Obama a strong mandate twice to proceed with his promises and Republicans said no way, hence the pen. Trump will use it, too, when opposed by Democrats and his own party, as it is doing now. (OK, it's not really the GOP!)