As someone who for decades has been kept out of the media-manipulated political conversation and who has had none of his many books reviewed in the mainstream press, despite being published by Cambridge, Princeton and other prestigious presses, I regard my presence in this forum as the equivalent of gate-crashing. Having said that, I see no reason why those who ignore me should want to treat me any better in the future. I have shown my contempt for their orchestrated discussions on whom or what is “conservative.” For thirty years I have argued that the Left enjoys the prerogative of choosing its “conservative” debating partners in the US and in other Western “liberal democracies.” Those it dialogues with are more similar to the gatekeepers, sociologically and ideologically, than they are to those who, like me, have been relegated to the “extreme (read non-cooperative) Right.” At this point I have no objections to creating new categories for “gay conservatives,” “transvestite reactionaries” or any other group the New York Times or National Review decides to reach out to. I consider the terms “conservative” and “liberal” to be empty decoration. They adorn a trivial form of discussion, diverting attention from the most significant political development of our time, namely the replacement of the Marxist by the PC Left.

While the American Right was once geared to fight the “Communist” threat, today’s “conservatives” (yes I am inserting quotation marks for obvious reasons) have capitulated to the post-Communist Left (to which in this country an anachronistic nineteenth-century designation “liberal” has been arbitrarily ascribed). The “conservative movement” happily embraces the heroes and issues of yesterday’s Left, from the cult of Martin Luther King to the defense of “moderate feminism” and Irving Kristol’s confected concept of the “democratic capitalist welfare state” to David Frum’s and Ross Douthat’s praise for gay marriage as a “family value.” When our conservative journalists and talking heads are not engaging in such value-discourses, they do what comes even more naturally, shilling for the GOP. Conservatism and whatever the GOP may be doing at a particular moment to scare up votes have become so intimately associated in the public mind and certainly in the media that there is no longer any recognizable distinction between them.

This party-lining never ceases to amaze me. Earlier this month, I was shocked to learn that a number of Catholic traditionalists, including Robert Bork and Mary Anne Glendon, were lining up to express their enthusiastic support for the establishment Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. None of these newly won enthusiasts, all of whom grossly exaggerate Romney’s “conservatism” as governor of Massachusetts, has to perform his current task to keep a position or to earn money. These eminent GOP advocates are impelled by the desire for conservative respectability, which means first and foremost being a dutiful Republican. This is not surprising since conservatism and the GOP seem to crave respectability equally, which in our time and place can only come with the approval or at least neutrality of the reality-spinners on the other side. It is the post-Marxist Left, which distinguishes that which is sensitive from that which is not, or respectability from extremism.

Even more significantly, the Republican Party has been an utterly corrupting influence on the American Right. The party bosses and spin doctors have pursued an unprincipled form of centrist politics. This revolves around catering to leftward leaning independents, after throwing a few rhetorical bones to the Religious Right during primary season. It is one thing for a person of the Right to prefer a slightly less contemptible party to one that seems even worse; it is another thing to devote oneself heart and soul to a waffling, middling party as the sacred vehicle for achieving one’s high principles.

Were it up to me, I would ban the term “conservative” from our political discourse, the way Germans go after people who sport Nazi-associated symbols. The word in question is misleading and perhaps downright dishonest, particularly when it refers to a social democrat favoring most of what is favored by the Left, but wishing to do leftist projects more slowly while attaching to them such tags as “family values” or “individual initiative.” I am pleased that the GOP opposes Obamacare (so do I). But I doubt it will do much to roll back this costly scheme, the way it did nothing to roll back the Great Society or other additions to the federal welfare state and our oppressive anti-discrimination apparatus since the 1960s. “Conservatism” now means in practice getting back to the year 2008, that is, to the last time the GOP more or less ran our vast administrative state—for their own  patronage use.

As a reference point we might recall that “conservatism” once meant the principled opposition to the French Revolution that arose with Edmund Burke and other critics of the democratic and human rights ideology of the radical revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century. It makes no sense to apply this tag to our “conservatives” and GOP presidential candidates who are seeking to impose French revolutionary principles on the world, if necessary by force of arms. Why would I describe as conservative the exact opposite of what the original conservatives were struggling to resist? Sending American armed forces, rigorously adapted to gay and feminist standards, to spread our global democratic values beyond our shores may be classified according to more than one category. Conservative, however, is certainly not one of them.

Allow me however to substitute, in the fashion of my now deceased friend, Sam Francis, the designation “rightwing” for “conservative.” Whereas “conservative” seems to me as an historian to have little or nothing to do with our historical situation, the less time-conditioned description “rightwing” may still be relevant for us. The Right opposes the Left out of conviction, but what the Left opposes will vary from one age to the next. For example, the authoritarian Right that ruled Spain in the 1950s and 1960s arose to fight the Communist and Anarchist Left. In the US today, the Right is taking a libertarian or decentralist character, because the Left it combats has its power vested in public administration, public education and the culture industry. Needless to say, the cultural-social Left that holds sway today and which has evoked a relatively manageable opposition, is no longer focused on revolutionary socialism or the nationalization of productive forces, except in a very marginal way. This post-Marxist Left advances gay and feminist rights and the self-validation of non-white minorities, and it uses government control and a crusade against discrimination to increase its leverage.

Those who oppose this Left are fighting from a steadily weakening position. They have lost the cultural war to the state, our educational system and MTV; and as the predominantly left-leaning Latino population and the lifestyle Left continues to grow, the real Right and the faux right GOP will be driven into a less and less promising minority status. The only way out of this worsening situation for those who don’t like the direction in which the multiculturalists and our two national parties are pushing us is a vast reduction in federal authority, together with the increase of state and local powers. This will not deliver New York City or San Francisco from the Left, but it will limit the power of New York City to control what goes on in Augusta, Georgia or Ames, Iowa.

The Right should properly assess the mediocrity of its circumstances and work to create enclaves that will allow it to survive in what is likely to be a harsh environment. In this respect, it may be like the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain that survived the Moorish conquest and which later combined to take back the peninsula it had held before 710. The Right however must now work without the hope of “winning back” a central government it never really held. Appeals to the “people” are equally foolish, since the Right can no longer rally to its banners a majority of America’s residents. The notion, propagated by the neoconservative media, that most Americans are “conservative” or right-leaning,” is meaningless or mendacious. On all social issues, the US has been rushing toward the left for decades, and in 2008, a majority of voters, among whom we have to assume were many “right-leaning” types, gave their support to the most leftist president in US history.

It would also not be advisable for what remains of a serious Right, as opposed to dutiful Republicans or neoconservative zombies, to avoid nationalist postures. Contrary to the hopes of well-meaning populists, nationalist rhetoric is now entirely in enemy hands—and it is likely to stay there. Talk about “national” uniqueness no longer evokes historic communal or cultural identities (to whatever extent it ever did in the US) but a radical leftist vision of global troublemaking. Neoconservatives, aided by the Religious Right, have made American nationalism identical with global democratic imperialism and a view of America as a “propositional nation.” The Right, as opposed to these latter-day Jacobins, should think not about expanding a homogeneous, late modern empire, but about what it can salvage after being routed and marginalized. Survival should be the immediate concern of a non-aligned Right. An America without a Right will become like Western Europe, a population controlled by two variations on the post-Marxist, multicultural Left. This may happen in the US no less than in Germany, France or Sweden, unless the Right can identify its interests and work to gain its own biotope. In this demanding task, it should expect no help from Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, or Mark Lilla. They are, to repeat the cliché, part of the problem.

The Right (I no longer address “conservatives”) should choose wisely, if it intends to back a presidential candidate. I would urge the Right to reject the defective candidacy of our former Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum. Despite his reputation as a “social conservative,” by which is meant traditional Catholic, Santorum has proposed no plan for decentralizing our administrative Behemoth.  And his value mantras are certainly no substitute for such a plan. In foreign policy, Santorum seems to switch roles, going from playing Savonarola at home to proclaiming an American mission to implant human rights everywhere on the planet. His neoconservative ebullition bodes ill if Santorum ever became president, although that does not seem likely.

The least problematic candidate from a rightist perspective is Ron Paul. An outspoken seventy-seven year old candidate, Paul is the least likely to receive the GOP nomination because of his identification with what the GOP was at an earlier point in its checkered history. He holds tenaciously to constitutionalist principles and is averse to ideologically driven interventionism abroad. What may turn off the traditional Right, however, are his libertarian inclinations, appeal to individualism, and his willingness to give outspoken foreign enemies the benefit of the doubt. In an imperfect world from the perspective of the Right, however, Paul seems head and shoulders above his rivals for the nomination. He may in fact be the only (at least nominal) Republican candidate, whose election would not put the Right in an even worse situation than it is now. In the second best of all worlds (the best being that he’d be elected), Paul would send a telling message as a third-party candidate, by making the GOP-neocon nominee suffer a well-deserved defeat. Only once that occurred, would it be possible to reorganize the GOP or build up a third party around the principles of decentralized government and foreign policy retrenchment.

Following developments in the Republican presidential nominating contest the instability of the race is stark. Every political contest involves flawed candidates: how could it be otherwise? But often the public develops a firm sense of the perspective of the candidates and chooses to join a team. As primary campaigns are waged on a state-by-state basis, it is expected that in some realms one candidate will do better than another, but psychiatric mood swings are something else. We saw the politics of allegiance in the competition between Barack and Hillary (and the wormy love apple: imagine our blue dress politics in an Edwards presidency!). In the states of the industrial Midwest, home to Reagan Democrats, Hillary posted strong numbers; Obama was more successful in states not so hard hit by industrial decline, states with a rainbow electorate, and those open to a new type of politics. Soon one knew the metrics of the race, even if the outcome was uncertain. But the Republican campaign upends these rules as voter preferences lurch wildly. This is a campaign year that reminds us of voters’ cultural fickleness – their political ADD. They are watching a reality television show and so are we (Jeff Goldfarb describes his pained reaction in “The Republican Reality Show”). If one is not newly tickled, one turns away. Media narratives set our politics.

We have gazed at candidates, quasi-candidates, and proto-candidates – Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and The Donald – dance with the stars. Can parties fire their voters? Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty could have had his turn had he the internal fortitude or cockeyed optimism to recognize that to be dismissed in August might lead to be crowned a year later. If politics were based on a comparison and conflict of ideas, this would be inconceivable.

But American politics has become, as Jeffrey Goldfarb emphasizes, a reality show – adore it, dismiss it, or despise it, but depend on it. Voters demand diversion; they want bread and circuses, at least circuses. Around the scrum are kibitzers, now Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, who, after deciding to disengage, demand that attention be paid. Palin seems committed to pursuing Rush Limbaugh’s 2008 “Operation Chaos,” designed to prolong the Democrats’ primary contest and undercut the eventual nominee. In her case, the fleeting Governor undercuts what is ostensibly her own party as she tells her admirers to vote for Newt to continue debate, and, presumably, her role in it. Our rogue muffin, a mildly progressive governor of a mildly libertarian state, has assumed her role as a mistress of ceremonies of the grand guignol of tabloid politics.

At this moment, after the Florida presidential primary, Mitt Romney seems to have surmounted Newt’s second surge, despite Sarah Palin’s counter-cultural rap to “rage against the machine” by voting for the former speaker. Images, even those of the heavy metal left, are to be plucked by anyone plucky enough to do so. No doubt twists and turns will continue in this drama on the road to Tampa, as voters get bored with the pragmatic lassitude of Mitt, a man who would be Ike or at least Bush 41. Perhaps Ron and Rand Paul will galvanize voters to throw the TSA off the island, raging against those airport scanners and the bureaucratic touch that follows. More plausibly, we might discover that the sad illness of Rick Santorum’s special needs young daughter Bella, now hospitalized in Philadelphia (from the effects of the genetic disorder Trisomy 18), will provide sufficient weepy pathos to propel his candidacy among an electorate weaned on Love Story.

But what if Mitt triumphs? Mitt as nominee poses challenges for an ADD electorate that demands the frisson of thrills and the flutter of delight. Elections in which a President is on the ballot can be referendums or choices. The incumbent hopes that the voters will see the contest as a choice. The challenger, particularly in parlous economic times, hopes for a judgment of the sitting leader. Despite his deep pockets, if Romney is the Republican nominee, Obama will provide the only electricity in the room. He will be the Ozzy Osborne, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian of October. Perhaps Mitt Romney will find it difficult to energize his base, but Barack Obama will achieve that for him. With Newt on the ballot, the choice will be stark, but with tame, vague Mitt, the election might be a referendum. Our ADD electorate will have to determine the narrative of the moment on that first Tuesday in November. On that day will the president be imagined a Greek naïf, an acolyte of Fidel, or the Great Leader of the resurgent East? Or is being an American Idol enough?

Republican ideological excess and disintegration were in clear view in Iowa. New Hampshire suggested that this would likely lead to a weakened Romney candidacy. Now, the South Carolina results raise doubts about Romney’s inevitability. This was widely discussed yesterday among media pundits of various political stripes. But I think that more importantly the results highlight the sad state of the political culture of the right. They also enrich my judgment of how the general election will look.

The competing candidates represented disintegrating components of the right. Santorum is the value conservative, appealing to the working class, what remains of the Reagan Democrats. Ron Paul is the libertarian anti-statist, as the purist appealing especially to the young. Romney is the capitalist, the Republican of big business, once identified as moderate or even liberal (Romney’s father), now identified unsteadily as conservative. And Newt Gingrich is the Republican of resentment, more expressive of anger than of a clear reasoned position.

Gingrich, the demagogue, prevailed. He not so obliquely is the candidate of racist attack, as he rails against Obama as “the food stamp president.” He is the anti-elitist, denouncing the liberal media, and the Washington and New York establishments, proclaiming himself to be “the Reagan populist conservative.” Yet, Reagan created his coalition through the force of his positive personality, while Gingrich, in South Carolina, put together his primary victory with his personal negativity.

In response to my last post on the Republican primary season, Michael Corey challenged me, and Deliberately Considered readers, to take seriously Romney’s speech after he won the New Hampshire primary, to understand what Romney was presenting as the alternative to Obama’s policies. I think he misunderstood me. I recognize that Romney is presenting alternatives, as are Paul and Santorum. I welcome posts and responses explaining and supporting these positions. Wall Street, libertarian and value conservatives do have positive, but largely incompatible views. I judged, though, that the only thing that holds the Republicans together now is the emotional rejection of Obama. This was confirmed in South Carolina in the Gingrich victory.

I doubt Gingrich will be the Republican nominee, but he will have a huge effect on the 2012 general election, nonetheless. If he is the candidate, we will observe the power and limits of the grandiose, of the ideological, of the demagogic. If he is not the candidate, Romney, Rick Santorum, or perhaps someone not yet in the race, perhaps even as Gary Alan Fine hopes chosen in a brokered convention, will have to pay tribute to the demagogue and the forces he represents. And I am convinced the results are likely to be defeat for the Republicans. The election will be between fear and the common sense, and I am convinced that common sense will prevail. Call me an optimist.

The primary results in New Hampshire Tuesday night point toward the general election campaign. Romney will be the (uninspiring) Republican candidate. As he runs against “Obama’s failed presidency,” many conservatives will wonder whether there really is a choice. Ron Paul will probably not run as an independent libertarian, but his supporters will have to judge, in their terms, whether a big government Republican is really preferable to a big government Democrat. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will dutifully follow the leader, but working class Republicans, or as they used to be called Reagan Democrats, will harbor their doubts concerning the representation of their economic or moral interests.  Republican unity, if not enthusiasm, will focus on the negative, the rejection of Barack Obama, but the 2010 Republican emotional advantage, which is very important in politics, as Jim Jasper has explored here, is finished.

To comment on this post, click on the title.

Recent posts and discussions at Deliberately Considered have been about fundamental problems in contemporary democratic culture: the need to engage in political discussion beyond clichés, the consequences of the persistence of modern magical political thinking, and the danger of transition to dictatorship from democracy. It makes me think about the state of the right and the left and the ideal of a contested political center.

Ideology has not ended, to my dismay (as I reported in my New Year’s post). People believe that they have the truth in politics in a variety of different forms, on the left and right, in the U.S. and globally. In a strange mirroring of Socrates, who confirmed that he was the wisest of men because he “knew that he didn’t know,” contemporary ideologues know that their opponents don’t know. Opponents don’t only think differently but incorrectly, politically incorrect. Material interests, character, moral failure and ignorance are used to explain the other’s mistaken position. Alternative views are dismissed instead of confronted. True believing market fundamentalists know that the problem of the economy will be solved through de-regulation. They will not pay attention to the arguments and evidence of those who explain how such de-regulation is the cause of our global economic crisis. Those who are sure that capitalism is the root of all evil won’t pay attention to those who examine how all attempts to construct a systemic alternative to capitalism in the last century have ended in economic and political failure. It is not the convictions that I find disturbing. It is the unwillingness of people to actually take into account the insights and evidence of those with whom they disagree.

Thus, I think that Gary Alan Fine’s imagined magazine is not only a matter of idiosyncratic taste. As he put it in his recent post:

“I hold to a somewhat eccentric contention that there are smart liberals (neo- and old-timey, pink and pinker), conservatives (neo- and paleo-), progressives, reactionaries, socialists, libertarians, and more. Is my generosity so bizarre?”

No, not at all bizarre. I think there is a pressing need for Fine’s generosity, that we need deliberate debate about the problems of our times, drawing upon diverse opinions and orientations. It is my hope that over the coming months Deliberately Considered becomes more and more like the magazine of Fine’s dreams. Indeed, I think we have from the start been moving in this direction.

“People reside in gated communities of knowledge.” Fine notes. I trust we contribute to opening the gates, a place for serious discussion about the problems of our times. The pungent political speech that Fine sometimes enjoys, though, from Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and company, is not particularly welcome. This is not the place for shouting heads. I suppose Fine would be fine with that.

It is with my concerns about true-believing and the need to take into account the positions of those with whom I disagree that I reported my response to the Iowa caucuses. I don’t want the eventual Republican nominee to win the election. This is my partisan position, not only because I support President Obama, but also because I think there is a fundamental crisis on the right in our times, which has not yet been addressed. A shellacking would help. I think there are real signs that a day of reckoning is upon us. I think the fissure in the Republican Party, clearly revealed in its primary campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination, is a hopeful sign. Thus, Michael Corey in his response to my post misunderstands me. My point is not that the Republicans are fighting with each other, therefore my candidate will win, or my position will prevail. Rather, my point is that the odd combination of the Reagan coalition, including true-believing free market, neo and Christian conservatives, along with Main and Wall Street moderates, is breaking down, and that this is good not only for Democrats, but also for Republicans, and for the Republic. I understand that Romney will likely win the primary campaign and that he may even defeat Obama. But the lack of enthusiasm for Mitt underscores that the coherence of Reaganism, with its unexamined dogmatisms, is at last over. The only thing that now holds it together is an extremely dark force, hatred of Barack Hussein Obama.

I agree with Lisa Aslanian in her reply to my post, in which she emphasizes the dangers of hatred. I also agree with her that Obama’s opposition enflamed by hatred could conceivably persist into his second term. But I suggest that the power of hatred, like the power of love, has its limits. I think the limits of Obamaphobia are already evident, as the President is taking the initiative against the Republicans (more on this in a later post). I also think his new tough turn does make an appeal to OWS and Ron Paul skeptics (as Lisa desires). My hope, which is pitched against hopelessness, is that those who are committed to libertarian principles, conservative morals and the wisdom of habit and custom, learn to proceed with their commitments in a less dogmatic fashion. A reinvention of Republican political culture is something that is pressingly needed. Such reinvention is already ongoing among Democrats, led by Obama, as I explore in Reinventing Political Culture.

Scott in his reply to my Iowa post ends with the assertion that we are all liberals. I assume he is referring to the legacies of 19^th century liberal thought, that unites present day conservatives, i.e. free market liberals, and progressives, i.e. those who think that state interventions are necessary to assure individual opportunity, along with those who want to keep the government out of the bedroom, along with those who want to keep it out of the market. While I think Scott is making an important point, there are also many who are motivated by principles outside the liberal tradition, as I am sure he realizes. Some conservatives believe in the priority of community, tradition, religion and an inherited order. Among the Republican Presidential hopefuls, this is the emphasis of Rick Santorum. And, of course, there are those who are in principle socialist, as well. Although the self-proclaimed socialists are rare in American society at large, they are quite common in the academic world. In fact, while I am extremely skeptical that there is a systemic socialist alternative to capitalism, I do think that socialism is an important principled position within a democratic society with a modern economy, a real utopia that suggests that the way things are now is not the way they will always be. Vince Carducci has been developing this position in his posts here.

Rather than declaring that we are all liberals, I would suggest that we all should be democrats and republicans, in favor of a free public life and rule of the people, committed as we are to competing partisan positions. I imagine Deliberately Considered contributing to this, in its small way, at least as an exemplar. Crucial to this is having a center where left and right meet, for common debate and action, for deliberate consideration.

Final note: This past week I posted a letter authored by former dissident activists, key figures of the democratic opposition to Communism in Hungary, expressing their deep concern on the recent developments in their country. The post attracted a wide global readership. Later this week we will follow through with a series of reflections on the course democracy is taking in that specific Central European country as seen by critical observers in another country in that region, Poland. We also will be taking stock of the developing American political drama. Comparing developments there and here, I trust, will highlight the importance of a free public for democratic culture and also provide us an opportunity to understand the fragility of democracy.

I have made this editorial decision because I am not an optimist. While I take it as my intellectual project to illuminate hopeful alternatives to the prevailing unjust order of things, I think it is important to realize that dangers loom.  The path from democracy to dictatorship is not only a danger in Hungary.

It’s déjà vu all over again, a nursery rhyme with a political twist.

“The Republican Party sat on the wall. The Republican Party had a great fall. All the Party horses and all the Party men couldn’t put the Party back together again.”

Last night in the Iowa caucuses, the Reagan revolution died before our eyes, and no one seems to be noticing. The fundamental components of the Republican Party, forged together by Ronald Reagan in1980, are no longer part of a whole, ripped apart by the Tea Party and its unintended consequences. The only thing that may keep the party going is hatred of Barack Obama.

“Reaganism” was never a coherent position. It involved tensions that were unified by the power of Reagan’s sunny televisual personality.

In 1991, in The Cynical Society, I observed:

“The ‘conservative mood’ was not a … natural creation. It was constructed … by Reagan himself…his package brought together a new combination of symbols and policies…Fetal rights, a balanced-budget amendment, advanced nuclear armaments, tax and social-welfare cuts, and anti-communism do not necessarily combine. Reagan combined them.

As the satirical columnist, Russell Baker glibly put it, some supported Reagan so that he could be Reagan (the ideologues – this was the well-known refrain of the New Right), others supported him so that he could be the Gipper (the nice guy) he portrayed in an old Hollywood football film. But both sorts of supporters, who were fundamentally in conflict, created the new conservative mood. They constituted the Reagan mandate. Reagan did not represent a diverse constituency. He created it as the political majority.”

Neo-conservatives concerned then about the Communist threat, now are concerned with Islamofascism. Christian moralists, libertarians and corporate conservatives conflict on many issues. Reagan minimized this through his media presentation of self in political life.

The coalition persisted through the one term presidency of Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush and his son’s Presidency, George W., who also used a down home personality to win a contested election and then fear as the basis of his re-election. But now the grand Reagan coalition of the Grand Old Party is falling apart. The Tea Party has radicalized Republican rhetoric, and atomized its political positions, making the coalition impossible.

The tepid front-runner status of Romney, combined with the persistent strength of “not Romney,” is a clear indication of the present state of affairs. Yesterday, Romney couldn’t break through his glass ceiling, only 25% of the vote. The religious right coalesced around Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul revealed his libertarian power. Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry lost because of their substantial political weaknesses, while Newt Gingrich, the object of relentless attacks, promised to attack in turn in New Hampshire. There is serious contestation, with foundational disagreements. The thing that holds these disparate politicians together is a common rejection of Barack Obama, which has dark undertones, strikingly different from the lightness of Reagan’s personality.

The talking heads have noted the likely practical result: there will be a longer primary season that might have been. It may take some time for Romney to seal the deal, though he still will seal it. The election will be between Romney and Obama, with the vaunted enthusiasm for the right greatly diminished. Romney lacks both the clear convictions and the personality that Reagan had to keep the coalition together. Paul may run as a third party candidate. True believers, Christian conservatives along with libertarians, will probably continue to doubt Romney’s conservative bona fides. And there are just not that many neo-conservatives and corporate conservatives. The Republicans are falling apart.

Barbara Ehrenreich posted a witty note on her Facebook page yesterday that went viral:

“In a race between a white supremacist, an advocate of child labor, a couple of raving homophobes and an empty suit, there can be no “winner,” so please don’t bother trying to wake me with the news.”

I think Ehrenreich needs to wake up. The Republican Party is one of the two parties in this institutionalized system, with a distinguished past. Its twists and turns, its rise and fall, will determine what is possible in the United States, as well as what is impossible. This has been quite clear since the election of President Obama. Imagine where we would be if he had a loyal opposition. And it will continue to be true if Obama wins yet again, which I think is likely.

My conclusion: the Republicans are at the brink of disarray. They could conceivably prevail in the November elections, but if they do, there would be a contradictory mandate, Reaganism beyond Reagan, with fear and hatred holding it together. More likely, after the Iowa caucuses, will be the re-election of President Obama, with a disorganized opposition permitting him to operate more freely. That, along with a social movement pushing him forward, making “change we can believe in” likely. But then again,  maybe I am being a bit too optimistic.