I agree that there are many bugs in the system itself and that there is more than just Republicans imploding. But...and here you bring the discussion beyond ethics in government, but I'm okay with that.

Democrats have actually been sounding alarms of these things and offering solutions for decades. I could even argue that FDR through LBJ was one long recognition of the inequities in our system and a major attempt to implement solutions, both economic and political. Problem was they were doing it at times of war, so the "guns or butter" issue took over. LBJ is vilified (for good reason) for his personality and Vietnam, but he had a real vision for domestic policy that would have gone a long way to alleviating poverty if fully funded and sustained. Republicans derailed this and, since Reagan, have been dismantling what FDR and LBJ set up to improve our economic and political systems.

Carter was sounding the alarm and offering solutions regaring addiction to oil and its connection to fundamentalist Islam in the 1970's. Carter was saying our foreign policy should be based on more humanitarian concerns than raw self-interest. But again the Republicans blocked every move to do so and reversed any progress Carter made as soon as Reagan took office.

Al Gore was sounding the alarm and offering solutions on global warming before it became in vogue.

And I am only skimming the surface of Democratic politicians. I have met dozens of politicians personally. Some are...well...politicians. But many are doing all they can do to fight the good fight and recognize everything you say. All of those politicians are Democrats.

The Republican Party has been an obsticle to reform and improvement of our system since the 1920's. The larger implosion you talk about is pretty much a result of the persistent Republican glorification of the 1920's economic policies (that led to the Great Depression, but they ignore that). They want to turn the clock back to those pre-FDR policies that nearly brought down the American system in the 1930's (FDR held it together) and threatens to bring it down now. Democrats since FDR have, to varying degrees and with varying consensus within the party, sounded alarms and offered solutions.

Nothing major is going to be accomplished within the American political system (barring some Constitutional Amendments) outside of the two party system. Even TR's Progressive reforms had to be carried out through the two party system...and he was the last person to successfully initiate major reforms from outside the two parties. All other major reforms (FDR, LBJ, Carter...) have started from within the 2 party system...and also been defeated in the 2 party system. Demcrats, variably, have fought for those things that I see as improvements. Republicans almost across the board since the 1920's have opposed all those things that I see as needed within our system.

Seeing that I can't help but be extremely pro-Democrat despite the disappointments, the drift to the right, the in fighting. At it's heart the Democratic party really IS the party of reform. It's platform really is at heart progressive. It just gets derailed by opposition, internal dissent and incompetence. The Republican Party has a platform that is, at heart, regressive.

I see two fights and I fight them both. There is the larger fight against the regressive policies of the Republican party that looks to the 1920's as their model for what America should be, and for the progressive policies which, though started by a renegade Republican, were adopted by the Democratic party from the 1930's on. Then there is the internal battle between the Democrats who want to strengthen the progressive and populsit side of the Democratic party and those who see adoption of Republican policies as the way to victory. They don't see it as a hollow victory, but I do.

I fight the second battle each and every primary season and between elections. I fight the first battle in the general elections and it means putting defeat of the MAIN obsticle to change (the Republican Party) ahead of the fight to keep the Democratic Party moderate. The progressives are a minority within a minority. It is hard to do anything in that situation. And our fight gets harder each time a progressive chooses to register independent or green or whatever since then we lose that person in the primaries, which are where the internal struggle occurs. Sometimes a very progressive Democrat, someone with real values and honesty, loses by a few hundred votes in a primary to a less progressive, more compromising Democrat. That is when I dislike the Greens and independents the most: a few hundred of them in a district could have elected the progressive.

THAT is why I frame it within the party. Because I see the fights year after year WITHIN the party, and the defeats are sometimes so close that it really could be changed if some of those Greens and independents got busy WITHIN the party.