Christianity was once radical, yes, as was democracy, capitalism, Roman republicanism, American republicanism, and the Protestant Reformation. But so was Marxism, Naziism, Catharism, 1520s peasant anarchy, Bogomilism, the New Left, Luddism, the French Terror, eugenics, and abortion. What separates the two? The experience of success, moderate change, and a long, humble series of adaptations to the realities of any given community.

Christianity would have been nothing without Paul. Protestantism would have been nothing if it had just been Thomas Muentzer, and not Luther. America would have been nothing if it had been Jefferson and Paine, without Madison or Adams. We must be Paul, Luther, Madison, and Adams. There are already too many would-be Christs.

As for those pieces of social legislation you seem set on defending, as the cliche goes, not all change is progress. Returning to my trinity of success, moderation, and humility, too much of our safety net is demonstrably unsuccessful, was, at the time, profoundly radical in conception, and is, then and now, reflective of an endemic hubris in our collective philosophy of government. Conservatism isn’t blind reactionaryism. It only seems that way because we only discuss the controversial innovations. You’ll notice none of us are defending marital rape, to name a much more recent innovation than the New Deal. We’re opposing the New Deal, not because it’s new, since it really isn’t, but because it’s a dangerous precedent and an increasingly obvious failure.

But there is one thing that Gottfried doesn’t mention in his otherwise excellent article: The fact that the U.S. population is getting browner, with the explosion of the Latino population. By the middle of this century, America will have a non-Caucasian majority — which, as Gottfried notes, is voting increasingly leftward.

That’s already happened in California — long regarded as the trend-setter for the rest of the country, given the fact that its population — 10 percent of the national total — is a true microcosm of the U.S. as a whole.

The Latino birth rate in the U.S. hit a milestone last year when for the first time, it outpaced that of Caucasians, according to the Census Bureau. California already has a majority non-Caucasian school-age population.

Foolishly, that state’s Republican Party embarked on an campaign on immigration that was poisoned by anti-Latino rhetoric — which not only alienated the state’s Latino voters, but triggered a huge anti-Republican backlash.

By alienating a traditionally conservative — but fastest-growing — segment of the U.S. population, The GOP foolishly repeated the grave mistake it made in 1964 by nominating a staunch opponent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Barry Goldwater) and again in 1968 by pursuing its infamous “Southern Strategy” of openly appealing to conservative Caucasian southerners who fiercely opposed the civil rights movement, costing the party the support of blacks, which has been the GOP’s most loyal voter constituency for a century after the Civil War.

Today, California is an essentially one-party state, with the Democrats holding all seven statewide offices and nearly two-thirds supermajorities in both houses of the legislature, as well as both U.S. Senate seats and the majority of the state’s congressional delegation.

As California goes, so does the nation as a whole. No matter what happens in this November’s election, the die has been cast. The Republicans, who electoral appeal is now pretty much limited to Caucasians, are a doomed party.

A return to sanity will occur when electioneered talking points no longer act as a substitute for clear thought.

What stops the fanatic if he is voted in again?