The Left Predicts the Demise of the GOP

I love the people of the Left. They're so sincerely earnest. And Common Dreams is quickly becoming one of my favorite lefty sites.

Common Dreams published a column today by David W. Orr, which is a sequel to his column published in January of this year. Both are titled, "The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party," Parts 1 and 2."

I'm not sure how Orr defines "imminent," but the dictionary says, "about to occur." If the demise of the GOP was imminent back in January, I'm not sure what happened. Last time I looked, they were still around.

Part 1 has some stunning analysis of the state of the GOP and its prospects:

Following the election of 2004, much has been made of the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, even its possible end. But it has escaped the notice of our blow-dry television pundits and political observers alike that the Republican Party, in the full blush of triumph in control of all the branches of government and large sections of the media, stands on the edge of certain extinction.... The question is not whether it will survive as presently constituted, but what else will be destroyed as it collapses in ruin and ignominy, sooner than later.

Orr lists ten "rules" of the Republican Party that are a series of things they deny, including my favorite: "Deny the necessity for civil discourse, honesty, and transparency in the conduct of public life, thereby holding the citizenry in contempt and promoting a spirit of meanness. "

Let me emphasize that last statement. It's the Republicans who are promoting a spirit of meanness in our country.

The Republican Party has chosen to deny social, ecological, cultural, religious, and economic realities which are unavoidably complicated, complex, diverse, ironic, and paradoxical. Instead they have chosen to make their own simplistic, ideological, and chauvinistic fantasy world that has little affinity for law, science, a free and independent press, fairness, true security, ecological sustainability, and the accountability that is requisite for genuine democracy.

This is the complete list of the Democrat talking points. But that was January.

Today's column is much more ferocious in its condemnation of the GOP:

[The Republican Party] forged an alliance between Southern racists, the extreme Christian right, big business, neo-conservatives, and a group of right-wing financiers willing to invest billions over several decades to build ideologically driven think tanks and a nation-wide media echo chamber to mislead the public and return the country to the world of the Robber Barons of the 19th century. They played the public for fools, covering their tracks with patriotic and religious rhetoric and devising ruinous policies too complex to be widely understood. But, driven by an extremist ideology and directed by ruthless leadership, radical Republicans will fall victim to overreach and its own particular kind of blindness. The recent legal difficulties of Lewis Libby, Tom Delay, Bill Frist, and Jack Abramoff are only the tip of the iceberg. Other revelations are coming about the fabrication of the reasons for the mistaken war in Iraq. Still others will show a pattern of corruption and fraud at a scale for which we have no national precedent. Perhaps it is only a sign of hubris, but more likely it is growing evidence that the national Republican Party, having marginalized its wiser leaders and tossed good judgment overboard became a criminal enterprise given to deception and mendacity in order to cover grand theft at a national scale, all on behalf of something called their "base." But its mounting legal difficulties and decline in recent polls are evidence of deeper causes that will soon bring the entire enterprise to ruin.

Orr spells out the course of action that the Left needs to be prepared to take as soon as the GOP collapses. It's a fast track to a European-style socialist utopia. Read both parts of Orr's prophecy, because it reveals the unvarnished mindset of the Left. Fascinating and disturbing at the same time.