I’m thinking, “Journal of the Plague Year” might be apropos. Jacob Weisberg dissects the slow-motion tragedy of our times here. These days, the Republican Party can be divided into three groups: those who want to destroy the American economy in order to destroy President Obama (see Cantor, Eric); those who want to destroy President Obama but would rather not destroy the economy unless it’s absolutely necessary (see Boehner, John); and those few closet Republican moderates, who would actually like to cooperate with the President, but fear that if they did so they would be publicly castrated and their genitals ritually consumed, pour encourager les autres.* I guess this was what things were like in the McCarthy era.
Afterwords
But why do the heathen rage, as I’ve been asking myself for the past week or so? Why does the election of a moderate Democrat (Clinton/Obama) drive millions of Republicans over the edge? And why can’t the Democrats, who have won the two-party vote in four of the past five elections, achieve a stable majority? Conservatives, particularly southern conservatives, have been on the losing end of a long string of culture wars, going back to the mother of all culture wars, integration (the last battle in the mother of the mother of all culture wars, the Civil War). Politically, southern rancor was held in check by a lingering allegiance to the Democratic Party, perpetuated by “Defense Democrats”—moderates like Sam Nunn. Their careers were destroyed by the end of the Cold War, and a new southern right, driven by a loathing of all things Yankee, emerged. New items have been added to the mix—Jews like Eric Cantor who see the Democratic Party as the foe of Israel, and northern evangelicals like Sarah and Michele, whose constituencies are as white as the snow that covers them. The Democratic Party, after all, is largely set up to do favors for minorities, and up north, way up north, they don’t have ‘em. And you can toss in southwestern honkies (and others) who feel threatened by immigration from Latin America. Gee, how did we win that last election?
*The fate of moderate Republican women would differ in detail, but not in essence.
