Reply #27: The final 3 paragraphs are good warning.

[phantom power]

Where we go from here could be very, very ugly. The GOP right now is in the process of alienating and crushing every last scrap of moderately sensible politics from within its ranks. That means that American voters will very likely have the following choice in 2010 and 2012: On the one hand, a discredited do-nothing Democratic Party that promised change and didn’t deliver; and on the other, a rabid, ultra-regressive GOP that is itself promising change from the failed former would-be change-providers.

Before you guess who would win that contest, bear in mind that this is likely to be happening under still dire economic conditions and a shrinking national standard of living.

You may be forgiven for thinking that that scenario is all too reminiscent of a certain European country in the 1930s.