What I can never understand is the way that policies that have very little to do with each other somehow get bundled up together. So, for example in the USA it appears that gun control is seen as a left wing policy, and opposition to gun control is a right wing policy. And it could just as easily be the other way round, and would be in many parts the world. In the UK not so long ago the big division was between the Tories being pro-Europe and Labour being anti-Europe - and then they changed ends.

It seems to me that the basic division between parties is about ways in which the economy should be run - and that hasn't got anything to do with different views about gun control, or abortion, or drugs, or any number of other social issues, or about foreign policy and all that.

All those are things that divide people and that matter to them - but somehow the assumption seems to be that party divisions based on economic theories just happen to coincide with those divisions, and that an electoral system based on choosing between the resulting parties is in any real way "democratic" when it comes to deciding what to do about these other issues.

It isn't really surprising that an overwhelming majority of Americans don't even consider bothering to vote (rather more people vote in the UK, but not that many, and the percentage is going down all the time.)