George Packer thinks it's possible. In other words, there's hope. But, of course, as Packer also points out, in the end there's also cynicism.
... For the first time in memory, a major candidate based an entire campaign on fighting inequality and won a resounding mandate. If, without sacrificing public safety and efficiency, Bill de Blasio can make New York a place of more truly equal opportunity for all, a city where the elemental unfairness of America’s new gilded age is finally diminished a little, then he will open up the range of policy alternatives and show the way for a new wave of Democrats around the country. But he must understand that New Yorkers are not completely different from other Americans, who, in the past generation, have lost much of their trust in government. This is why the technical troubles and substantive turmoil around the launch of the Affordable Care Act are so damaging: they confirm voters in the expectation to which they’ve been conditioned for decades. There’s never more than a slender chance to bend the lines on the graph away from cynicism. ...NewYorker
Got a cynical curl in your lip? Fair enough. But it's worth remembering that we can't honestly dismiss New York as "not really America..."
The most encouraging point Packer makes is that extremism may have had its day: "2013 might turn out to be the high-water mark of Republican extremism, the year the polarization line finally levelled off."
