A right-wing earthquake in the making?

[babsbunny]

http://blog.buzzflash.com/carpenter/622

Submitted by pmcarpenter on Mon, 03/15/2010 - 4:25am.

* P.M. Carpenter

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

Bear with me. This is a bit dry, but relevant -- more relevant than many appreciate.

In the mid-1950s, Bill Buckley founded the National Review in response to a crisis: conservatism, as broadly defined, could not in fact be broadly defined, except in terms of internal warring. For too long, as Buckley and his strategic lieutenants saw it, Burkean "traditionalists" and economic conservatives had been at each other's throat, producing a fault line which manifested in electoral drag.

And this, thought Buckley & Co., simply had to stop.

To the counterintuitive rescue: former Marxist Frank Meyer, who began mapping in the National Review and other conservative publications a means to right-wing unification and ultimate electoral victory. And in discovery of the winning path, Meyer had only to go home to Mama: the dialectic.

By 1960 he was insisting that conservatism's traditionalist and libertarian camps were indeed in fundamental agreement, yet each -- and this is the relevant key -- was so self-righteously cocksure of what it alone postured as philosophically "decisive," a self-destructive "distortion" set in; which is to say, each side took its dogma to exclusive extremes, refusing necessary compromise and accommodation -- necessary, that is, if ultraconservatives were ever to gain electoral dominance.

[malaise]

1. Now if your could guarantee

that a tsunami would follow and wash them all away, I'd put the champagne on ice. :evilgrin:

[LiberalLoner]

2. Yup, my sentiments too! I do hope the party falls apart and doesn't regain power for decades.

And if they do regain power, I hope they will not be all about sexism, racism, homophobia and hatred of "other" like they are now.

[old mark]

3. Remember in the late '90's, the GOP were telling all who would listen that they were

THE PERMANENT MAJORITY PARTY in Congress, and that the Dems were dying out. This was when Newt was in his prime, screwing pages and leaving his wife as she lay in the hospital with cancer.
They thought they could get away with anything, could do no wrong, could sell every lie, cheat and rob the people and make them love it.

The party is over, GOP - in every sense of the phrase.

Save the bubbly for November, but put some aside for sure.

mark