I'm no political expert — merely an observer of life around me and an avid reader.  I've lived in California for well over 40 years, surviving quietly in an enclave of extreme leftist society.  It's a sad thing that once-wonderful places to live have been so degraded.  We feel a force — a machine — pushing those changes, but we cannot see the machine itself.

I experience my community shrinking in on itself, as it's overwhelmed by an ever-expanding lack of safety, increasing violence, rampant crime, homelessness, filth, drugs, and rotting infrastructure.  My little bedroom town has now installed license place readers at every entry, and the police blotter is filled with the resulting arrests.  Lots of entries say, "car left at high rate of speed, did not chase."  This is what our world is coming to — unsafe schools included.  How is it that we allow such degradation of our quality of life?

When Dorothy pulled back the curtain in Oz, you saw a little, manipulative man pulling the levers of power.  Who's pulling the levers here?  So far, the lever-pullers have managed to keep the curtain closed.  But there is little doubt that a mastermind or several masterminds, plus a coterie of toadies who keep the secret, are joining in planning for "fundamentally changing" America for the worse.

Some of the manipulation is blatant.  Laws are changed over time, with people not even realizing what's happening until it's too late.  For instance, open primaries are now held in 22 states.

The ramifications?  Let's look at Georgia: Stacey Abrams ran unopposed in the Democrat column.  That left the door wide open to force the very unpopular Republican governor, Kemp, who had been way down in the polls, to win with massive, coordinated Democrat voting in his favor, against Trump endorsee Perdue.  The same thing happened with the secretary of state election, where the much-reviled Raffensperger handily defeated Trump-backed Jody Hice.

Look at California.  I just got my "ballot," which I will be able to return at my convenience, not that it will matter a whit, to a drop box in my 'hood.  The governor's race has 26 candidates listed.  California has what is known as a top-two primary.  This type of primary election lists all candidates on the same primary ballot, and the top two candidates, regardless of their partisan affiliation, advance to the general election.

Image: Golden Gate Bridge (edited) by wirestock.

Besides Newsom and a couple of no-name Dems opposing him, there's the usual smattering of greens and such and a whopping 13 Republicans.  We clearly have no California Republican leadership capable of winnowing this group down and promoting a viable candidate.  It will be very easy to split to vote, confuse the voters, and end up with Newsom running against some nonentity nobody will vote for.  He doesn't even need to lift a finger to campaign.

In fact, less than two weeks before the primary, there's been zero coverage of the race on the local news.  No debates, no real way to find out who's who except to rely on the voter pamphlet.  What's worse, if the candidates are spending on TV spots, most of us will never know.  Who watches live TV these days?  The DVR rules.  We all record and watch later, minus ads.

The machine knows exactly where to have an impact.  A few years back, a ballot measure — a "proposition" in California parlance — asked the voters to approve ranked-choice voting a top-two primary.  Top vote-getters in the primary go on to face off for the golden ring.  What could go wrong?  It was touted as an improvement, and the voters bought the lie.

Fox News shows regularly offer "here's what they're saying" clips from other stations.  We see that all use identical language, again and again.  The left is very, very organized — and the fact that the Squad is placed to the farthest left gives the rest an excuse to move left some more.

The right is split between the leadership class, on the one hand (that is, McCarthy/McConnell and the rest of the RINOs, who are old-school "conservatives" in the Chamber of Commerce, mo' money mode) versus the young contingent of Trumpster firebrands, on the other hand.  They couldn't be farther apart, and they are never going to trust one another.

The ill-kept secret, of course, is that the RINOs are really a uniparty with the left, for any vote that counts.  They speak with forked tongues and will always side with the money.  Just ask the Ukrainians, who are $40 billion richer, while our border has been ripped wide open and our schools are at risk.

Congresspeople's main job is to fundraise.  For the most part, those elected are forced to sell their souls to the devil for cash.  Only a few manage to stay true, and those, sadly, never get the plum committee memberships where they'll have any influence.  Only those indebted to the lobbyists may apply.

That's the system.  That's the machine.  I don't know how to change it.  Do you?