The GOP's metastasis

Dana Milbank, on the "ugly-umbrage" campaigns:

What’s different this time is that the Democrats are employing the same harsh tactics that have been used against them for so long, with so much success. They have ceased their traditional response of assuming the fetal position when attacked, and Obama’s campaign is giving as good as it gets — and then some....

[T]he Democrats are no longer simply whining about the other side being reckless and unfair: They are being reckless and unfair themselves.

I'll put aside for the moment that, in the aggregate, I see little more venom and viciousness than in most presidential campaigns. The Romney camp is doing its part, and far more, to uphold the American political tradition of demagogic flailing; so all in all, this campaign season's sum of imbecility is about right. If Obama were losing, perhaps he'd call Romney's recklessness and unfairness and then raise, but there seems to be no need for that, not yet anyway.

Milbank's scorekeeping does present another quite interesting scenario, though, and it is this. Indefatigable bullies such as the contemporary GOP never say die; they just keep coming back, fist for slap, gun for knife, thermonuclear annihilation for conventional bomb. Accordingly, this crowd will never accept a GOP-damning verdict by the American electorate.

And that makes one wonder. What final, futile explosions of irrational rage await us? In what form? And for how long?

I suspect we've already entered Stage One of finality. I just can't quite put my finger on what Stage Two will look like, and it's simply too horrifying to even imagine the coming wickedness of Stages Three and Four.

Comments

[japa21]

Much as I hate to think of it, which side has more guns, which side has people talking about how the tree of liberty needs to be fed with blood from time to time, which side talks about the need to take the country back anyway they can.

Yes, stages 3 and 4 can be quite horrifying. My fear is that they may skip a couple of those steps and just go to full blown Armaggedon.

[Robert Lipscomb]

It is quite simple really. Think Germany between the wars.

No, this not another lame attempt to equate one's opponent to Nazis. There will be an attempt to determine who stabbed them in the back because, you know, they surely didn't lose because they were beaten by superior forces. this will be followed by a period of epic amorality combined hyper-inflation of political capital. That is what happens when the social norms of, in this case, the party disappear.

There will be two opposing camps seeking to establish its totalitarian orthodoxy on the whole. Think fascists versus communists in Germany. Of course, the most disciplined and ruthless faction will prevail.

Well, you know the rest.

So, expect a corporatist candidate to emerge with the Tea Party in tow, just in time for the 2016 election. They will have decided it is all Romney's fault; that Romney was so bad a candidate that even Paul Ryan could not save the campaign.

And he will be truly crushed by Hillary.

[AnneJ]

I'm rooting for Obama to overcome all of the superpac money and voter suppression to win this election, but that doesn't stop me from worrying about what will happen after that. I seriously doubt the republicans are going to just take their lumps and mellow out. We may not have seen anything yet, and if they want to destroy their party, it may very well come at the expense of the whole country.