https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20818/us-elections-the-third-party-isnt-on-the-ticket
One of the dangers that democracies face is that of the machinery of government morphing into a political party with its own culture, traditions, methods and, needless to say, interests — above all that of self-perpetuation. Thus, the US has a third, invisible party, besides the Republicans and Democrats.
That Mandarinate is especially well-entrenched in the State Department, the Pentagon, the Treasury and, more importantly, the judiciary.
It also has well-established, at times incestuous, relations with lobbyists, single-issue activist groups, universities with their tenured academics, and think tanks with rotating doors to government departments and the media.
The Mandarinate maintains close ties with those unmovable, effectively tenured members of the Senate and House of Representatives.
Conspiracy theorists refer to this Mandarinate as “the deep state”.
However, what we are dealing with isn’t the product of a conspiracy by a cabal in a black chamber. It is the organic product of a system in which democracy is reduced to elections, and elections reduced to a beauty contest, just as a set of rituals is often marketed as a religion.
Winning an election is an art; governing is quite a different one.
[T]he closer the decision-making process is to those affected, the stronger a democracy is.
Rebalancing power between Washington and the states has been an issue since the end of the Civil War.
While the two candidates fire abuse at one another, the voter isn’t told what they actually mean to do about cracks in the structures of world order, the war in Ukraine, China as a threat or a rival, the exponential rise of anti-Semitic activities and the deepening of incivility in public life.
