Retreat usually leads to defeat.

There is a cat

Democracy demands an opposition party.

Foreign rightwing fundamentalists attacked the United States. Domestic rightwing fundamentalists took the spotlight. And everywhere, progressives, liberals, and moderates either fell in behind them, or retreated into the shadows . . . We have seen the consequences.

Were the radical democratic impulses of the American Revolution still driving US politics, it would be difficult to imagine corporatization of the kind witnessed today. But that impulse has weakened, and the relationship between the people and the corporation has reversed.

If history has ended, it has been stopped at remarkable cost to the average US citizen.