I would say that socialism is exactly what they want. They don't like that word, so they routinely give it other names, like democratic socialism or the democratic republic of North Korea. They are convinced that people need to be governed and that they are the best qualified to govern. Pure Evil, wearing the clothes of humanism.

They don't usually explicitly endorse socialism by name, though they increasingly don't oppose it either, thinking of it is a viable approach if done 'correctly'. They are Pragmatist progressives who think of themselves as non-ideological while assuming the coercive power of government as a supposed non-ideological tool to progressively control more and more with no limits. In fact they are pursuing the collectivist-statist ideology of 1930s Europe and its state worship. They have no respect or understanding for Constitutional limits on government in either content or procedure, following its remnants out of no more than momentum, for as long as even that lasts. It doesn't make any difference whether they call themselves "socialists".

Cool, thanks for the heads up... I kind of almost expected it to be one, but didn't have the time to look into it.

So it leads to a constructed black hole. Not surprising in the least. At least it's not in Belize... :-)

Not suggesting a resort to violence. Only a proportional response to what others initiate.

Yes it is a very real problem, one that is becoming progressively and frighteningly worse. But we choose a lesser evil between the two candidates because they are the only ones on the ballot. You can't choose a better alternative than that when you vote because the election is not about a better alternative. There is no better choice in the election because the parties already put them on the ballot and one of those two will win no matter what you do or wish for. It is fact, not what we would prefer. Within the context of the election you can only choose who might be better in some ways versus who is a worse danger when there is a difference, or not vote if you think there is no difference or you can't fathom what it might be. And that is what you should do where you can. Morality means making choices that are possible to make in reality and does not consist in fantasy in the name of "idealism". It is important to realize that.

The more fundamental question is why is this moral false alternative the only election choice over such a long time period, why is it getting worse, and what can be done about it? This is not about just the future, but also the past -- how we got here. If that isn't understood you don't know what to do to change it.

Ayn Rand discussed this extensively. The politics of a country follows its dominant philosophy, culture and sense of life. If that isn't changed with better ideas the politics will not improve. Politics is the consequence and the last to change. There are no shortcuts. No matter what you do in politics the kind of viable candidates we get and the kind who are elected are a result of what appeals to most people because of what they believe.

You can't short circuit that or expect that without changing the culture the politics will miraculously change. It isn't a matter of somehow getting the parties to suddenly "wake up and give us a true leader". With the increasingly accepted bad philosophical ideas dominating they will give us a "true leader" all right -- der fuhrer. A dictator or a 'man on the white horse' pied piper who doesn't know what he is doing and claims he will "make us great again" with "deals" are not the answer.

We got where we are and it is getting worse because the Enlightenment philosophy of reason and individualism that made the founding of this country possible was incomplete and because it was supplanted by European counter-Enlightenment philosophy and it's consequent statist-collectivist politics. Read Leonard Peikoff's The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America.

Ayn Rand wrote in her "Don't Let it Go" in The Ayn Rand Letter Nov. 22 and Dec 6, 1971:

"We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something—and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason, and a view of man as a rational being.

"These are philosophical issues. The philosophy we need is a conceptual equivalent of America's sense of life. To propagate it, would require the hardest intellectual battle. But isn't that a magnificent goal to fight for?"

The philosophy she urged that we need is the subject of Atlas Shrugged and her non-fiction.

She did not say, demand that the parties "wake up and provide a true leader", or run out and put a fringe political party on the ballot, ignoring why people vote and run for office as they do, and complain that drug laws are too strict while urging ignoring the threat of foreign affairs. She thoroughly denounced and rejected such an anti-intellectual approach.

This doesn't mean that you can't do anything in politics. Some politicians are better or worse than others. We are still in a mixed (but declining) system of statism and freedom, not outright dictatorship, and many of them can be influenced on specific policy and actions through grass roots action (which is not something Ayn Rand was involved in). But that depends on enough people having common sense and a better sense of life to appeal to on the specific issues than the explicit statist-collectivist convictions and bromides repeated over and over by the intellectuals. And it takes a lot of knowledge and work in both the specifics of the problem and the means of affecting policy in government. You can't just run around saying "people yearn to be free" and "we have rights because faith in God says so" (whose faith?) and expect anything to change, either in general or for some specific problem. When you are up against a problem with government you have to dig in and intelligently fight it. But that doesn't stop the general trend from becoming worse. To bring about a better future you have to advocate better ideas through the principles of reason and individualism.

For the principles answering your question you should read or reread Ayn Rand's articles "Don't Let it Go" and "'What Can One Do'" (Ayn Rand Letter, January 3, 1972). Both are reprinted in her anthology Philosophy: Who Needs It https://estore.aynrand.org/p/218/phil.... Forty five years later the principles still apply, and it is interesting to see the comparison with the state of affairs then and how it has drifted.