Sunday Reading

From Michael Tomasky, more on the saboteurs of democracy (a.k.a., the Rethuglican Party):

Really, what is to be done about this Republican Party? What force can change it—can stop Republicans from being ideological saboteurs and convert at least a workable minority of them into people interested in governing rather than sabotage? With the failed Plan B vote, we have reached the undeniable crisis point. Actually we’ve been at a crisis point for years, but this is really the all-upper-case Undeniable Crisis Point. They are a direct threat to the economy, which could slip back into recession next year if the government doesn’t, well, govern. They are an ongoing, at this point almost mundane, threat to democracy, subverting and preventing progress the American people clearly desire across a number of fronts. They have to be stopped, and the only people who can really stop them are corporate titans and Wall Streeters, who surely now are finally beginning to see that America’s problem is not Barack Obama and his alleged “socialism,” but a political party that has become psychologically incapable of operating within the American political system.

And, from the guru of Beltway bipartisan centrism, Tom Friedman:

Republican politicians today have a choice: either change your base by educating and leading G.O.P. voters back to the center-right from the far right, or start a new party that is more inclusive, focused on smaller but smarter government and market-based, fact-based solutions to our biggest problems.

But if Republicans continue to be led around by, and live in fear of, a base that denies global warming after Hurricane Sandy and refuses to ban assault weapons after Sandy Hook — a base that would rather see every American’s taxes rise rather than increase taxes on millionaires — the party has no future. It can’t win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time.

The Rethugs might want to get the memo out to Fox "News" and the ranting dimbulbs of the far-right infotainment complex/ Angersphere, too. But, whether it's the Wall Street money boys who cynically fund this on-going pathology, or the propagandists who fill the otherwise empty heads of the base with misinformation and lies, the Rethugs have been living off this unstable witches brew for at least two decades. It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for them to survive this crisis of politics intact.