The Party of Toxoplasmosis

By way of John Cole comes Stiftung, a blogger I've never read before, who has interesting insights on the plight of the Republican Party. Stiftung riffs on Paul Krugman's recent column in the NYT about the crazy, conspiracy-obsessed right wing, in which Krugman implores "moderate" Republicans to rein them in.

Stiftung says, in approximately a million words, that such hopes are pointless, since the right-wing "Movement" only plays for keeps. It doesn't want to win office in a democracy -- it wants to rule absolutely, and it'll seek power by hook or by crook. Infiltrated and controlled by the parasite Movement over the past couple decades, the Republican Party and its members can't do a thing to stop the slide into crazy -- and opposing it is a sure way to mark oneself as a traitor.

Further, the mainstream media treat the Movement as if it wants to play by the rules, which is tragic because it risks letting the danger go unchecked.

Stiftung ends with some thoughtful questions:

Krugman just touched on three overriding conversations critical to the nation: (i) can the rump Movement ever be reconciled to participating in a liberal democratic society?; (ii) what is the price we pay for a enfeebled ‘Republican Party’ host shell paralyzed by more powerful parasite Movement?; and (iii) how can American liberal democracy be served if the media itself really doesn’t understand what it is reporting — *or more damningly* — won’t?

I wish I knew the answers to those.

Anyway, my main critique about the post is that it has always been this way to some degree, and it always seems to me that it's unpopular to point out that some folks won't play nice; that the truth doesn't always lie between two opposing camps; that some folks are insincere or stupid, and flat wrong, at that. People who lust for money and power will lie, cheat, steal, etc., as natural as breathing. At least as far back as the '60s, they enflamed the idiots for Republican votes and volunteers: the crazy anti-Communist John Birch Society; the racists; the Trilateral Commission conspiracists; the anti-tax fanatics; the fundamentalists. Now the idiots are running the show. But here's the thing -- there's a lot of overlap. Moderate Republicans are an anomaly, not a natural product of the system when it's working properly.