American political culture does not arise from education - despite the influence of Public Administration programs from leading Institutions and Political Science programs with their small collections of enthusiastic debaters and would-be attorneys. All the power in our political culture arises from agencies of consumerism - businesses, corporations, would-be lotto winners, car enthusiasts, electronics buffs, ATV owners - anyone with an interest in promoting lifestyle and wealth; which places the overwhelming majority of people, young and old, in the political classes that run everything - that is the consumer class - and that class cares about nothing except preservation of personal happiness as measured in hours of music, availability of excess food supplies, hours of driving around, consumption of drugs and alcohol, freedom to act on impulse, and freedom from labor.
The rock n roll culture rots the political development of its masses of adherents, themselves fooled into believing they are counterculture; while the business culture that sells the masses products, loaded up as they are with health care costs, profit margins, excessive salaries and the massive waste incurred in privately held or publicly traded business. Amoral business rots the social development of any civic, collective responsibility in favor of maintaining a system that has no accountability - because there is no single body politic large enough, and no generally accepted political culture or institution to demand such accountability.
This is a clueless politics that imagines itself libertarian, a weak liberalismm that tolerates everything and does nothing - 'fighting' for their point of view with song lyrics, jokes and drumkits as weapons, because there is no real conflict. There is no real fight. The buyers of products in this political economy are partners with the producers of the same. The intersection of American politics then, is buyers and sellers, not leaders and laborers engaged in applying principles to actions - instead this political culture is a kind of raging gossip between wags and partisans for whom the exercise is an entertainment.
Political developments in this environment, then, are most likely to occur within the parameters and limitations of its sophistication. And what is that? It is today's Washington. It is celebrity politics. It is politics as circus and it has no real goals and its leaders are beholden to to the core values of consumer satisfaction and daily life unsullied by the constraints of an ideology; not required to engage the application of science and research to civic life unless the expenditure of funds furthers the interests of more capital accumulation for its own sake.
The most likely scenario of political development for an entire generation to come is a series of confused legislatures producing bodies of law and policy that themselves encapsulate the symbiotic parasitism of consumers and producers whose goal is the mitigation of existential pain through better distribution of palliatives - appliances, vehicles, entertainment and excess food.
Nihilists and religious fanatics - both suffering from having no power - create incidents to disrupt the system - but the incidents become tolerable and theatrical, inevitably themselves subsumed as plot lines in media and not real events that have a political purpose.
The last, and unlikely scenario is the appearance of a world leader, a world teacher - a Stalin, Hitler, a Tamerlane, an Akbar, an Emperor - and the appearance of mass organization. In Chavez there is some hope of such a development, top down creation of a political economy and political culture with a basis in something other than the legacy of rock n roll and consumerism. But here in the US? It is not likely at all that any one leader will appear with the ability to form the basis for a new civitas - a political philosophy based on sharing of meaningful work and the products of that work.
The question is whether to just accept everything as it is and watch TV and enjoy an abundant market. A yes to that notion is a Democratic Party core value, and the essence of old line liberalism. Accept the massive oveproduction of cars, the isolation of suburbia, the nuclear family, and whatever someone more powerful than you wants to do.
The alternative is to call out in every venue for an American Chavez - a visionary who can challenge the foundation of this wasteful and alienated culture.