Noam Chomsky and Scott Casleton in the Boston Review:
Scott Casleton: In the past you’ve suggested that the Democrats and Republicans aren’t too far apart where it counts, such as in their support for corporate power. Do you still think this, or is the small but growing shift in the younger wing of the Democratic Party a promising sign of change?
Noam Chomsky: There have been changes, even before the recent shift you mention. Both parties shifted to the right during the neoliberal years: the mainstream Democrats became something like the former moderate Republicans, and the Republicans drifted virtually off the spectrum. There’s merit, I think, in the observation by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein that increasingly since the Newt Gingrich years—and strikingly in Mitch McConnell’s Senate—the Republican Party has become a “radical insurgency” that is largely abandoning normal parliamentary politics. That shift—which predates Donald Trump—has created a substantial gap between the two parties. In the media it’s often called “polarization,” but that’s hardly an accurate description.
More here.