I am pessimistic about the future of the American republic.

I think the big disconnect between me and those who favor Democrats over Republicans is my profound pessimism about the future of the American republic.

While I think Republicans have led the way in America's democratic decline, I don't think the Democrats are in any way a solution to it. At best they may slow the rate of decline by being marginally less horrible than the GOP.

But slow death is still death.

Voting Democratic will not buy us time to fix our problems. We have no capacity to fix them. We will either have a civil war - with whatever comes after - or an increasing authoritarian country with a mere veneer of democracy.

I hope I'm wrong, but obviously I believe I'm right. So voting Democratic looks to me like tying a few more life rings to the Titanic in an attempt to keep it afloat a little longer.