I’m afraid that’s how I think of them.

One party believes that the answer to America’s problems lies in giving more power to the people who already have power.

The other party believes the answer is to give more money to the people who already have money.

Each has become so ideologically entrenched that they have both espoused platform planks that are clearly absurd — simply for the reason that they are diametrically opposite to the other’s.

We’ve bought into the easy lie that we can hire someone to fix it all and vote them into office and they’ll fix it all … and those who vie for the money and power have been eager to sell us the lie.

Government ain’t the answer to our problems. A government-free economy ain’t the answer to our problems.

We’re the answer to our problems.

Our faith in each other has been shaken by terrorism, the longest war in our nation’s history, natural disaster and failure to respond well to it, outsourcing of jobs and production to other nations, corruption/cheating/scandal among the power-and-money brokers left unpunished, too many years of exorbitant overspending and digging our nation deeper into debt — on the part of ourselves individually, corporately, and governmentally.

And our economy is built upon our faith in each other. Not in gold. Not in silver. Not even in the solvency of our government or the rates set by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Each other.

If we trusted each other to be willing to work hard; produce good products and services; buy them, pay for them what they are worth, invest in them; pay off our debts; have a long-term economic view toward our assets (including our environment and labor force); educate, care for, mentor and look after those who are disadvantaged; not to overinflate prices in order to generate undue profits … well, we’d have an economy that no other nation and no act of terrorism and no force of nature could unseat.

But we don’t, and we shouldn’t expect to.

Because our economy is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and our government is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and we obviously don’t know what is best for the whole country … only what we want for ourselves. We buy what we want and we vote for what we want, personally, with no particular perception of — or concern for — any larger picture.

As long as we fail to see in current and historical perspective the vision that our forefathers foresaw when they wrote our founding documents and laws … built our nation from raw materials, hard labor, innovation and willpower … repudiated wrongs like slavery and injustice and bigotry … well, we’ll just slog along in the same downhill direction, led by the party of power and the party of wealth blindly squeezing at each other’s throats.

So we can vote like we mean it come November … but as long as we don’t see the vision of America long-term, live the vision like it’s our last best hope, and believe in each other as Americans, it won’t matter one mite which party wins and which party loses.