A Spork in the Drawer: California USA

Krugman:

The state of mind visible at recent right-wing demonstrations is nothing new. Back in 1964 the historian Richard Hofstadter published an essay titled, “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” which reads as if it were based on today’s headlines: Americans on the far right, he wrote, feel that “America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion.” Sound familiar?

And let's not forget Pat Buchanan's recent wail about oppressed God-fearing white folk: "America was once their country. They sense they are losing it. And they are right."

But Krugman rightly points out the possible future ramifications of this:

And if Tea Party Republicans do win big next year, what has already happened in California could happen at the national level. In California, the G.O.P. has essentially shrunk down to a rump party with no interest in actually governing — but that rump remains big enough to prevent anyone else from dealing with the state’s fiscal crisis. If this happens to America as a whole, as it all too easily could, the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster.

I think an argument can be made that we're already well down that road. One needs only to look at the Senate, a highly undemocratic institution (by design) made even more so by Republican obstructionism. Just trying to get a noncontroversial judicial nominee confirmed has become a long, drawn-out process. Throw in a couple dozen more Congressional Republicans and the system will likely shut down completely. (And a GOP majority in either the House or Senate will make the Clinton-era investigations look like a walk in the park.)

Another danger of this could be, from desire or frustration, an increasing tendency for the president to rule by Bushian decree - signing statements and using the cloak of "national security" to achieve what can't be gotten legislatively. We're already seeing far too much of that.

So what we have here is a building vicious circle: A growing inability of the national government to accomplish anything save catering to financial power, which leads to more populist anger, thence to a more radicalized Republican Party (the Democrats seem to be completely unaware of this anger or at least have no idea how to deal with it), and so on. (Violence can't be ruled out.)

If things go the hell - and I'm somewhat optimistic they will - many people will be asking themselves, how did this happen?

The warning signs were there all along. Deal.