it's hard not to be encouraged by the disgust which the citizenry clearly has for the political establishment regardless of party, as well as the resulting (and increasing) fear and confusion on the part of the political class. This sort of citizenry anger can re-arrange political alignments and explode political orthodoxies in fundamental and unpredictable ways. There is, to be sure, a risk in that, but there is a far greater risk in simply allowing the destructive political status quo to linger in unchanged form for much longer. (Greenwald)
There are two questions that I don't know the answer to: One--Does it matter at this point that the electorate is disgusted with the political establishment, or are we beyond the point of no return? In other words, is the power and wealth configuration that currently constitutes the political status quo really vulnerable? Two--If the political establishment is in fact vulnerable because of the electorate's disgust, what faction is in the best position to capture and channel that disgust to achieve its political objectives?
UPDATE: Commenter #8 SRV at Balloon Juice:
If you think people are crazy angry now, wait until they have had a couple more years to stew on high unemployment, low growth, outsourced, local and state bankruptcies, bigger deficits, and being assraped by the next brilliant Goldman Sachs financial instrument.
The presumption is that the middle class will recover and be the moderate middle. I don’t think y’all should assume that. The middle is going to fragment, and they are going to go to the fringes.
This relates to point two above. If the middle continues to fragment, how much of it will go to the left? Why should it as long as Corporate Dems are running the shop? What groups on the left are capturing voter outrage? Maybe that will change, but for now American populist rage is a right wing thing.
We make the assumption that things always return to "normal" with normal defined in rear-veiw mirror terms, but when deep structural changes are at work, the old normal has nothing to do with reality except in our obsolete imagination of it. It's clear that deep structural changes are at work now; it's also clear that these changes favor existing wealth and power and that the tradtional protections for the ordinary citizen are eroding year by year no matter which party is in office. And it's also clear that most Americans haven't a clue and are distracted by issues that are inconsequential to their futures and the futures of their children.
It is not at all clear that there are power factions that are emerging that understand what's going on and have a plan to redress the imbalances. If nothing emerges, then this negative stratifying trend is going to play out in ways most Americans won't like, but will be powerless to do anything about because it will be too late.