Sour Milk

I think a good analogy for our what our current two party political system has morphed into would be if dairy departments at grocery stores only sold two brands of milk, and both brands were always sour.  The two distributors of the two brands of milk have things set up so that no other brands are allowed to be sold nationwide. This means you only have these two choices, no matter where you go, and that's it.

So you go in and buy a quart of the Democratic milk, you get home drink it and it's sour, so you dump it down the sink. The next day you go back to the store and you buy some Republican milk. You get home, drink that one and it is just as sour as the Democratic milk was, so you again dump it down the sink.

The following day you you say to yourself: "Well maybe I just got a bad batch of Democratic milk", so you try it again. You get home, drink it, and it's sour, AGAIN. The next day you give Republican milk another try, and it's just as sour as the Democratic milk was, AGAIN, so down the drain it goes.

Now even though both milks are lousy, they have very unique packaging. Some people REALLY like the Democratic milk carton with the promises of quality milk inside, so they keep buying it hoping it will get better, but it doesn't. Same for the Republican milk carton. Different promises on the carton that appeal to different people, but still lousy milk inside.

There really is no incentive for either the Republicans or Democrats to actually make their milk better because they know you only have one other choice.  When you get sick of the other brand of bad milk the only choice you have is to go back to theirs, so both just put all their money into marketing and packaging. As a result both have the prettiest milk cartons, and promises around.  Heck I even hear one of the milk distributers is even PLEDGING that THIS time their milk wont be sour, (But personally I have my doubts about that, judging by some pretty consistent past performances).

Now a funny thing has happened over the years, many people have gotten used to the sour milk being peddled to them.  Some swear by the Republican sour milk while others swear by the Democratic sour milk.   I know, I know, that is really hard to believe but just look around, there are happy sour milk drinkers all around you!

But there is also something else going on.  More and more people are figuring out that neither brand of milk is any good, and neither is getting any better, so they are giving up drinking either milk, and are desperately looking for another choice.

Most of my life I've was told that it was a great thing that we lived in a country that only sells two brands of milk.  Now that I am a bit older and have tried both brands for many, many years, I now know that is not true.  But it does make me wonder if all this sour milk being peddled by Democrats and Republicans over the years, is where the old saying came from that; "There is no sense in crying over spilt milk."