I think for many it is theological. The America they know and remember is the shining city on the hill, anointed by God to lead the world till the second coming. That this vision never existed is beside the point, it is what they believe at a spiritual level. Any one or any thing that threatens that view is the work of the devil. Liberals, Obamacare, gay rights, etc. are all the handiwork of Satan. Any compromise with Satan will endanger the souls of the true believers and endanger their chance to go to heaven. That’s why it is more complicated than just Obama’s race even though that is certainly part of it. . They have no problem with an Allen West or Nicki Haley because they are operating from the same religious frame of reference.

I think it is mistake to call them crazy or unhinged. They are not. They are working from a very specific world view. Just because that worldview does not accord with the majority world view doesn’t make them crazy, mistaken maybe. but not crazy. The Iranian mullahs are working from a specific world view and they are not crazy either. It may be a worldview that we don’t understand or accept but we have to deal with it. The same goes for the religious right.

The problem is I have no idea how you acknowledge their world view and still run a 21st century economic/political system that isn’t based on visions of the second coming.

Last weekend, my wife, Gabby, and I went to see the movie “Gravity” at our neighborhood theater in Tucson. I’m a retired astronaut who has been to space four times, so I’m usually a bit skeptical of films that take place in space. For me, watching movies about space is like a congresswoman watching “House of Cards.” It’s entertaining, but it’s obviously not the real thing.

(. . .)

But the truth is, most of this doesn’t matter. Cuarón has given us a glimpse of the awe that is the universe beyond our atmosphere. And physics aside, he does it remarkably well.

My only hope is that we continue our exploration of space in real life, too. The majority of NASA employees have been furloughed as a result of the government shutdown. If Sandra Bullock’s Dr. Ryan were a real person, she’d still be waiting on the beach somewhere on planet Earth.

So, do me a favor. After you see “Gravity,” tell your member of Congress. Perhaps it will inspire them to put NASA employees back to work.

Edwin Meese III is back in the news: According to a report in Sunday's New York Times, the Reagan-era attorney general convened a group of right-wing leaders last winter to plan a campaign to kill Obamacare—by shutting down the government, if necessary. The apparent end-of-the-fiscal-year train wreck, according to Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Mike McIntire's story, was planned months ago.

Meese's return to the headlines is bad news for the country, and likely bad news for his fellow Republicans, whose efforts to blame President Obama for the shutdown might be undercut by news that a secret cabal of veteran Beltway insiders plotted the shutdown months ago. But for people who lived in Washington in the 1980s, it brought with it a certain sweet nostalgia: Few government officials ever represented better targets for mockery.

For people who followed politics, of course, Meese was the guy behind some of Reagan's most divisive policies. But ordinary commuters also experienced the Meese-bashing in ways they didn't with other officials: During the last couple years of the Reagan administration, walls, construction sites, traffic signal boxes, and highway overpasses throughout the Washington area were festooned with giant posters that read "Meese is a Pig." Soon afterwards, a second series of the poster appeared, with an additional two words: "Experts Agree!"

The campaign, in turn, drew ample national media coverage and represented something of a cultural moment—a pre-web meme of sorts. Stores began selling T-shirts bearing the same message.

(. . .)

For the moment, at least, the shutdown and the general scene of insanity in Congress is clearly hurting the Republican brand. And there’s a whole small industry of crunching numbers on the 1995-6 shutdown, etc., to estimate the likely impact on next year’s elections. For now the conventional wisdom is that the impact will be small, not nearly enough to restore Democratic control.

I have no idea whether that’s right. But as I was reading the various news reports, it occurred to me that there’s a subtler but possibly profound form of damage the GOP is doing to itself, one that will cast its shadow for a long time.

It goes back to something Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo used to say — that Washington is, in effect, wired for Republicans. Ever since Reagan, the Beltway has treated Republicans as the natural party of government. Sunday talk shows would feature a preponderance of Republicans even if Democrats held the White House and one or both houses of Congress. John McCain was featured on those shows so often you would think he won in 2008.

And there was a general presumption of Republican competence. It’s hard to believe now, but Bush was treated as a highly effective leader who knew what he was doing right up to Katrina, while Clinton — now viewed with such respect — was treated as a bungling interloper for much of his presidency. Even in the last few years there was a rush to canonize Paul Ryan as a superwonk, when it was quite obvious if you looked that politics aside, he was just incompetent at number-crunching.

(...)