They'll Be Back

Will the Republicans eventually stage a comeback? Yes, of course.

Of course. At the moment, they are positioning themselves as angry populists in the white Southern tradition.

The Democrats are a two mode Party: one group of Progressives and liberals, who don't seem to be able to get a grip on power, and a second group of pro-business centrists, who became ascendant in the recent election, as a small, but significant slice of suburban Republicans fled their increasingly deranged and theocratic Party.

My sense is that leadership in the Democratic Party is in the hands of the centrists, which seems truly unfortunate, because they do not seem to "get it". This is a group that got rolled over and over, in opposition to the most incompetent and stupid Administration in 70 years! I don't think most of them have a clue about how to play the game, in policy or politics.

The right-wing Republicans may seem like their own worst enemies after losing power decisively, but I suspect that, for a handful of big-money Republicans, this was deliberate -- they did not want to win, because they want the Democrats saddled with cleanup. Too many voters have only about six months of political memory, and care more about the price of gas than anything else in politics. Obama will soon be to blame for the poor economic performance of the country, in their pea brains, just as Obama will be blamed as Iraq falls apart upon American withdrawal, and so on.

The Republicans pretty much succeeded in turning the Judiciary into a partisan and right-wing bastion, and their life-time appointments to the Federal bench are young. The corporate Right-wing controls the Media, which is run quite cleverly to favor their interests. The Blago affair is just a demo of their power to create non-scandals to dog a Democratic Administration.

I'd like to think that the brand of home-grown Fascism that the Republican Party is preparing to offer the country, after they obstruct and undermine the "progressive" Obama Administration to death, will prove too repulsive to a majority, that the Rush Limbaughs and Lou Dobbs will not find a new and growing audience during the struggles ahead.

Democrats may muddle through, aided by a continuing generational shift within the Congress, the Party and its electorate. Obama shows every evidence of the political mastery that Harry Reid, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton lack. That's certainly where my hopes lie.

I am not gleeful about the corner the Republicans have retreated to, because I'm not all that confident that the country won't choose fascism, if pressed by continued economic stress and failure, or terrorism, riots or assassination. The Bush Administration has prepared the political precedents and legal ground, the Media propaganda machine is in place and well-oiled, the Judiciary is stocked with the Right people.

The Republicans, as they are today, are the alternative. And, it's a scary alternative.