The more things change . . .

No one should mis-over-estimate the secretary of state. David Brunnstrom at Reuters reports, "Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state when she mispronounced her EU counterparts' names and claimed U.S. democracy was older than Europe's." One of Clinton's slips reveals an aspect of the logic that sustains the two-party system. In an apparent attempt at self-deprecation, she confessed: "I have never understood multiparty democracy. It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution." Duopolists literally cannot comprehend a form of political organization that allows for the possibility of more than two parties. Taking this line of thought to its logical conclusion, we would have to surmise that the best system would be a one-party state. Clinton thus unwittingly demonstrates the totalitarian and fascistic impulse that runs through the highest levels of the two-party state. As Bush 43 put it, "if this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heckuva lot easier."