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It's my party and I'll cry if I want to . . . .
Seriously, the key to making a difference is to change people's minds, regardless of what party or label they fall under. Your/my single vote is practically useless; I'm more likely to be struck by lightening while winning the lottery on the way to the polling booth than to change the outcome of an election by my single vote.
But trying change somebody's mind about any political belief is probably completely futile for the vast majority of adults.
The older I get the more convinced I am that political "evolution" is purely a demographic phenomenon. People adopt their core political beliefs early in life and these never change in any fundamental way. The only way for the political scene to change is for demographic cohorts to appear, age, and disappear from the population.
Miami politics for example is dominated by the Cuban immigrant demographic. As long as that demographic dominates, Miami politics won't change.
I don't know what the demographic explanations are for the New Puritanism here in the U.S. But those people are as entrenched and as rigidly unbudging as a razor clam in the bottom of a cold sand hole.
I suppose it is possible for a strong personality to emerge and lead us out of this polarization, or lead all the snakes to the ocean like St. Paddy. But none of the current presidential contenders are even close to being that person, sadly.
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