Neil Gabler-The extreme Republican Party

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/12/the_extreme_republican_party/
A few excerpts: more at the link

I know folks that just can't stand impoliteness and who think that kids should be told to study hard, etc. The actions of the GOP in recently weeks has been a real turnoff by rational folks. The only ones who are still rabid Republicans are the rabid.

I can think of three possible outcomes:

1) The Republican Party gets recaptured by the traditional GOP operatives -- people like Karl Rove or Vin Weber, who've been trying to keep up the facade of a non-wackjob base.

2) The GOP collapses and a new right-of-center party starts up to replace it -- maybe based in the Ron Paul libertarians, though those folks generally seem too ideological to sustain a broad-based major party.

3) The GOP collapses and the Democrats fragment into pro-corporate and anti-corporate wings.


Actually, since none of the above seems quite believable, I might also suggest a fourth:

4) The Democrats split and the blue dog wing joins up with the remaining GOP "moderates" to form a fiscally conservative, pro-corporate party. However, the crazies of the far right aren't having any and coagulate into a relatively loose "movement" which is populist, anti-government, and demagogic.

This movement is unable to give rise to a coherent political party -- both because of its innate distrust of authority and because the relatively saner libertarians don't ultimately want to be dragged down by the all-out crazies, the racists, the secessionists, and the militia types.

After several years of widespread social chaos -- marked also by continuing economic turmoil, the emergence of more radical anti-corporate factions on the left, and probably any number of newly-spawned apocalyptic cults to add to the fun -- things finally quiet down about 2016, with the Democrats and the neo-Republicans (whatever they're calling themselves at that point) doing their best to put things back more or less on an even keel.

They succeed to a degree -- but only at the cost of that would have previously seemed an unacceptable level of social repression and the permanent alienation of some 40% of the population on both left and right. ...

Oh, hell, I can't keep going with this. I can't see *any* happy outcome, and it's more than a bit depressing.

In the Federalist Papers, I forget which one and whether it was Hamilton or Madison, there was an ongoing argument against the establishment of political parties because it would lead to allegiance of the various factions and prevent doing what was good for the nation.

It seems that the Federalist Papers got it right in this instance.

Where this will all end of course, no one knows. What we do know is that both parties are beholden to the corporatists who rain down with campaign cash. Both parties have also managed, through legal barriers, to thwart any attempt at the formation of a rival political party. Such political exclusion leaves little choice.

Torches and pitchforks, anyone?