Why is it easier for us to imagine politics as a permanent nightmare than to imagine real structural change?

Experience, I guess. I had a debate with my cousin back in '08. I took the side that Obama was going to be a leader of a new direction for the US. He took the side that I was setting myself up for failure, because the President isn't really driving the bus to being with. It looks like I lost that bet. There haven't been many thing in life that I've been more disappointed by than Obama. I thought he was the new FDR. I was wrong. We definitely aren't getting a new FDR in 2016 either, it seems. Real reform has to come from the bottom up, and that's why I was so hopeful of Obama. I thought he was a man who knew when to be a populist and when to make hard choices that might disaffect a lot of people in the short term. Mostly, he's just toed the party line, and sided with money at almost every turn. Unless wages start to rise really damn quick, I think it won't be too many more election cycles before someone who has some real stones will emerge. People can tolerate a lot when they're making more money than last year, but the longer that ceases to be true, the more likely it is that people are going to start to get restless.