Let me just give you the concluding paragraphs here:
"Revolution would seem to be in the offing for both our major political hierarchies.
If this is an accurate assessment, then the opportunities for ambitious activists will soon blossom again. Desperate groups within both parties will seek to suborn the rules of advancement to make headway for their golden boys. Persons eager for power or influence will find ways to slip past the parties’ remaining institutional defenses. With doctrinal weakness as the norm, electoral victory will usually be supreme above all other considerations. Moral constraints on acceptable tactics will fade, possibly even disappear.
It’s happened in every democracy known to Man, except for ours.
There is a significant possibility of civil disorder as our political system degenerates. Politics is the alternative to rule by the sword; it only works when the overwhelming majority of men see it as superior to bloodshed. If the system loses a sufficient degree of popular loyalty, the Asimov assessment will become prominent:
The feeling will pervade the Galaxy that only what a man can grasp for himself at that moment will be of any account. Ambitious men will not wait, and unscrupulous men will not hang back. By their every action, they will hasten the decay of the worlds. [from Foundation.]
What, then, must we do?
Perhaps the answers will arrive with our next."
Good stuff, read it all, right now.
