Reich: As Santorum and Romney Battle for the Loony Right, the Rest of Us Should Not Gloat

[pampango]

A party of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out-of-touch country clubbers cannot govern America.

They were not pleased to have a Democrat back in the White House in 2008, let alone a black one. They rose up in the 2010 election cycle as “tea partiers” and have by now pushed the GOP further right than it has been in more than eighty years. Even formerly sensible senators like Olympia Snowe, Orrin Hatch, and Dick Lugar are moving to the extreme right in order to keep their seats.

At this rate the GOP will end up on the dust heap of history. Young Americans are more tolerant, cosmopolitan, better educated, and more socially liberal than their parents. And relative to the typical middle-aged America, they are also more Hispanic and more shades of brown. Today’s Republican Party is as relevant to what America is becoming as an ice pick in New Orleans.

In the meantime, though, we are in trouble. America is a winner-take-all election system in which a party needs only 51 percent (or, in a three-way race, a plurality) in order to gain control.

...even if they lose the presidency on Election Day they’re still likely to be in charge of at least one house of Congress as well as several state legislators and governorships. That’s a problem for the nation. As such, the loony right is a clear and present danger.

http://robertreich.org/post/18391045294

Republicans almost seem comical (in an evil sort of way) at times in their pandering to "birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids and anti-intellectuals". As Reich points out, even if they are on their way to extinction (or at least massive internal change to accomodate the "more tolerant, cosmopolitan, better educated and more socially liberal" younger Americans), they are still in the position to cause great damage, particularly if they suspect things are slipping away from them.