It's beyond politics

This, from Ezra Klein, is America high on lethal Republicanism:

The 2013 fiscal cliff has the potential to be much worse than the 2011 debt ceiling fight.... The Congressional Budget Office projects that the contractionary impact of ... tax increases and spending cuts will be enough to throw the U.S. economy back into recession — and that’s before factoring in the uncertainty over the debt ceiling.

All this is going to make businesses and investors very nervous. If they begin to expect a possible economic crisis in early 2013, they will start pulling back this year in order to cushion themselves. That could mean layoffs rising and investment falling in September and October — the most important months for Obama’s reelection.

And that, courtesy Republicans, isn't "hardball" politics, or tough negotiating, or the traditional battle of a presidential election year. It is, rather, the unholy destruction Republican pols are eager to compel, if that nihilistic destruction means one more Romney vote, one more congressional seat, one more step to unseating Obama, just one more dram of GOP power.

This isn't a matter of mere politics any longer. It's a matter of national survival.