The Right Wing: Screwing Itself Into Irrelevance: Part One

Correction:
As Joshua has pointed out in the comments, I've oviously misunderstood Mr. Graham's remarks. He clearly is advocating some level of accomodation. That said, it changes my perception very little.

This is from today's New York Times. The US Republican party is engaged in a struggle between those who, y'know, work in the real world and know what the word "compromise" means and those who feel that Der Party is not sufficiently ideologically pure, like Michael Reagan (the Gipper's kid--Not as bright as daddy was but not far behind either):

“It’s interesting that people say the right has taken over the Republican Party — but no one can say what we’ve done,” Mr. Reagan said. “We’ve been closeted for the last eight years; it’s time for the right to come out of the closet.”

No, Mikey. Your party spent the past eight years $#!7ting on other people's countries, playing the politics of $#17ting-your-pants, slavishly leading the country into the economic hole it finds itself in today, legalizing doestic espionage, enthusiastically repudiating the Constitution, legalizing and embracing torture, laying claim to executive privilege unknown to most despots, and otherwise completely ₤µ©λing up the country and your fellow citizens.

The country knows exactly what's happened to your party, sir: It's become Rush Limbaugh's bitch. Like a teen hooker in the Dominican Republic.

Witness also Senator Graham:

Mr. Graham scoffed at the notion that the party was suffering because it was not conservative enough.

“Do you really believe that we lost 18-to-34-year-olds by 19 percent, or we lost Hispanic voters, because we are not conservative enough?” he said. “No. This is a ridiculous line of thought. The truth is we lost young people because our Republican brand is tainted.”

You lost Hispanics because you're raving, foaming, anti-immigrant racists, and you lost the young because your ideas froze solid back in the Goldwater days and never thawed, even to simply keep up with history. But that's okay. Eventually, if Senator Graham and Mike Reagan have their way, the moderates will all become Democrats and the party will regain what they appear to think is its true identity.

It's time for the right to crawl back under its rock and sit out the next three decades or so while the grown-ups get on with repairing the damage. If Specter stays a Democrat (and although I'm inherently suspicious of floor-crossers I've generally liked him), and Franken finally gets the Minnesota senate seat he won (in other words if Norm Coleman stops being a douchebag--Sorry, that's like asking a snake to stop being a reptile), then the Senate belongs to the Democratic Party.

Conservatives in Canada should keep this in mind. But it's likely to be awkward under a Prime Minister Harper, who uses "compromise" as a metaphor for "₤µ©λ you".

Oh, is it ever going to be awkward. Next post.