[eldavido]

Having read the Mueller report, I'm not ready to jump quite that far yet. But I do know it's certainly changed my view of what's possible, from Russia messing with the US election being "total conspiracy level stuff" to "they probably interfered, but it's not clear how effective it was".

I think the bigger point is exactly what you said though, the machine is broken. The candidates are going "direct to voter" and bypassing the "intermediaries" of the party.