The later 1960's were a time of considerable instability in the USA. We had the Vietnam War, and the mass protests against it, the hippies and the drug revolution, the sexual revolution, and the assassinations. All of this instability provoked a counterreaction, which we know today as neo-conservatism. The original neocons were liberals (or moderates) who recoiled in horror at the developments enumerated above, and embraced conservatism as a result.
I wonder if the current round of extremism on the right will generate a similar response on the part of moderate Republicans who look at the excesses of Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, John Boehner, and George Bush (excesses too numerous to catalog in this space) and ultimately decide that they are no longer Republicans. Not that they will become Democrats, necessarily, but that will cease voting for extreme-Right Republicans simply because they bear the GOP label.
Some kind of Rovian apotheosis may have been reached in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision, which ruled among other things that the "War on Terror" must be fought within the limits prescribed by the Constitution and international law (specifically the Geneva Convention). It is the usual electoral gambit of right-wing Republicans to brand Democrats as "soft on terrorism"; consider the campaign that unseated Max Cleland (which will stand forever as a low point in the Campaign Hall of Shame). Here we have not an election but a Supreme Court decision, but this nevertheless being an election year we learn that Republican candidates for the House intend to beat their Democratic opponents over the head with the decision, claiming that Democrats favor "special rights for terrorists".
The mendacity here is so extreme, so totally over the top, that one can only wonder how long it can be sustained. I remember during the Clinton impeachment hearings, then-Rep. Charles Schumer exclamining in exasperation, "the American people are waiting for us to come to our senses". Well Mr. Schumer, the people are still waiting. And what began during that time has only gotten worse since.
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