A four-party system?

It's too confusing. Republicans want individual responsibility but control of what we do to who in the bedroom. Democrats want individual freedom but protection for everyone from the consequences of bad choices.

Maybe we can simplify by making it more complicated.

In fact, let's oversimplify and say there are two primary arenas, social policy and fiscal policy (having to do with government finance). Let's oversimplify again and say most people are either conservative or liberal in each arena.

Then we have Republicans who are socially conservative and fiscally conservative. We have Democrats who are socially liberal and fiscally liberal.

The problem is jamming all the rest of us into those ill-fitting shoes. What if someone is a social liberal and a fiscal conservative? There are a lot of us out here, uneasy that the future is going to be a lot harder than the present and could be a whole lot less fun.

But there is another group I think has been under-appreciated. The social conservative and fiscal liberal, people who feel powerless and humiliated.

Powerless because they know the right-wing is picking their pocket and lying to them, stacking the deck for the benefit of a few and allowing the powerful to destroy opportunity. While they can be distracted by falsehoods that immigrants and foreigners are to blame for the lack of jobs, they also believe in the value of their work.

They also know the left-wing holds them in contempt, does not respect their values nor their traditions. They are humiliated that their belief in flag and family is considered quaint when they can point to alternatives with bad outcomes.

They side with the right against their own self interest because, as Thomas Friedman said, humiliation is the most under-estimated force in politics.

Two parties cannot represent four constituencies. Which is one more reason America is currently a house divided. In the past, it has taken a national crisis to unite us. Unfortunately, that is probably the case today.