I worked in state and city campaigns for a number of years, and I just wanted to confirm what you've written: that patronage and loyalty testing IS at the cente

I worked in state and city campaigns for a number of years, and I just wanted to confirm what you've written: that patronage and loyalty testing IS at the center (among other things) of high-level political operations. It's a cynical view, for sure, but politics is a cynical business for the most part. (Or at least that was my experience and observation.) For many years I've observed an out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach by the citizenry towards the darker side of politics (beyond partisan horse racing and gotchas). No real demand for investigatory journalism, because who wants to pay for that? As long as "appearances were kept up" citizens seemed to dismiss the dirty stuff in favor of the shallow Gotcha Debates. Very frustrating to see corruption and/or neglect being ignored by the voter base in favor of Bread and Circus politics. The fact that Trump is just making this more obvious has a lot of people stirring about how this is a new phenomenon, when what's happening is that the machinations are being exposed more willingly by the current regime. It's difficult to shake up a world view when appearances suddenly don't matter (in a traditional sense). Wake up please! Still have some sunlight left.