I’ve been thinking along the same lines as Rick Perlstein lately. It’s not that conservatives are getting crazier; it’s that they’re getting more powerful. But I don’t think Perlstein is all that convincing in his rebuttal. All we have to do is change the terms. The Republican Party has become almost uniformly conservative. Therefore, the GOP has gone completely insane. Whether Perlstein means to reassure us or he wants to give us fair warning, the truth is still the same. One of our two viable political parties has lost its mind and we’re in big trouble as a result. We can’t win elections forever. Sooner or later, the Republicans will win the trifecta of holding the House, the Senate, and the presidency. And when that happens, we are going to be in a world of hurt. The whole world will be in a world of hurt.
Things are bad enough as it is. Look at any state that has the Republican trifecta right now and witness what the Republicans have been doing to unions, to public service employees, to women’s rights, to voter registration laws, and on immigration. Our organizations and constituencies are under sustained and merciless attack. You can see the corpse of ACORN, the congressional condemnation of MoveOn.org, the right-to-work status of Indiana, the disenfranchisement of minorities, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, the loss of collective bargaining rights for public unions…
You can see what this would mean on the national stage. But listen to their foreign policy rhetoric on Israel and Iran and Syria and many other hot spots. Listen to what they say about the United Nations and Europe and international organizations in general. If they were to seize power in this country, world peace and the whole international order would be imperiled.
Conservatism cannot be allowed to become ascendant. The Republican Party needs to heal itself or it must be replaced by another party. I don’t know how to fix the GOP. All I know how to do is to try to keep them at bay. But I know that we can’t keep them at bay forever.
So, what can be done?
