a sufficient storm may never come

I think that the Republicans are pursuing an agenda of income redistribution, which, necessarily, will not win the support of a political majority on its own merits, for the obvious reason that it is not in the interest of a political majority. Motivating the religious right to a high level of activity, combined with the local organizational weakness of the Democratic Party in the old South, Florida, Ohio and Texas, is barely enough to get the Republicans elected.

But, close only counts in horseshoes, and the Democrats do not have the institutional strength to take power. The Media is now entirely in the hands of the corporate right-wing; the union movement consists of a corpse, a crook and a pipsqueak; Republican control of state legislatures has allowed them to gerrymander the House to an extent that Democratic control is only a remote possibility, even in conditions dire to Republican prospects. The Senate remains only a remote possibility as well; the Republicans can easily control the Senate without a majority in the country. Without control of one house of Congress or the other, exposure of Republican corruption — the Democrat's strongest card cannot be drawn from the deck, let alone played. Democrats need a huge swing, to gain power, and I suspect that Republicans can shift just enough to deny them such a huge swing, even post catastrophe.

In 2008, the Republicans may well decide to let a Democrat get elected President, and then hooverize the poor sucker, by forcing her to raise taxes, withdraw from Iraq, devalue the dollar, etc. — all predictable consequences of the Republican policies aimed to build a plutocracy, the side-effects of which will be blamed on the Democrats. Control of all Media will make the blame game, and hooverization, easy.