Rachel Maddow had a pretty amazing and scary editorial at the end of her show on Friday. It goes roughly like this.

• We've been at war in Afghanistan for 16 years.
• Every year is just like every other year. It gets quiet in the winter because it's mountainous and snowy and you can't get anywhere to fight. 
• But come spring, the war starts up again. 
• The US has no ability to change anything, because we basically don't have a functioning government. 
• So the years pile up and the war continues and nothing changes.

So the point of her editorial was this. If one of the candidates wanted to make a big splash with RM, they would campaign on this travesty. Our problem is more basic than not winning, or having the elections bought by special interests. The problem is we have no government. But no one cares. Or no one can do anything. Or it's not something you can win on. Or we'll just wait until the robots get sentient and they can decide.

I wonder if it has occurred to anyone that the US might be going through now what the Soviet Union was going through at the end of the 80s.