Apologies, but this is going to be brief and insufficient.
AntonBursch posted What happened to the energy of hope here at Daily Kos? the other day, and well ... I think "hope" is diminished because the system and process we believe we are a part of is broken ... because we are in a war.
AntonBursch asked "Where is the passion for a better tomorrow?" And the assumption is that it is gone. It may well be gone. It should be gone.
The party we worked for in 2012 won the Presidential election with Obama.
The party we worked for in 2012 won the majority of Senate elections.
The party we worked for in 2012 won the majority of votes for the House of Representatives, but due to completely legal gerrymandering did not obtain a majority of reps in the House.
Just this past weekend when confronted with a question about Congress's historic low popularity the Speaker set the bar to "repeal of laws".
People, you should not have "hope" that the system we are participating in will generate results. That system and its processes are intentionally broken to achieve results we can't abide.
The sad fact is that we are in a Civil War. That shooting and killing is not as bad as it is in Syria does not change that we have no way to achieve our political objectives, and it is not an accident.