The End of Divided Government

I am a big fan of divided government, when one party has the Congress and the other party has the White House. Generally that means that what gets enacted into law (or did until we were blessed with the combination of an obnoxiously stupid and stubborn president and a supine and spineless congress) is the product of compromise.

But that day may be going away for a very long time. First, if Obama is the nominee, he may win in enough of a blowout to get to the magic 60 in the Senate. 60 Democratic votes in the Senate means that the majority can invoke cloture and shut off debate whenever they feel like it.

My second point has longer-term consequences. Despite John McCain's professed desire to run a clean and issues-driven campaign, I have not a doubt in my body that the Wingnuts are going to try and back up McCain with an extremely nasty and dirty campaign effort. There are going to be racial whispers of "you really want one of them in the White House?" There are already no shortage of Wingnuts trying to use Obama's middle name to imply that he is a stealth Muslim terrorist. They are going to talk about "he used drugs when he was younger" while conveniently forgetting about their unswerving support for the present occupant of the White House, a notorious dry drunk and former coke head. They are going to repeat lie after lie, such as "he's a Muslim" or "he went to a madrassa." But make no mistake about it, dear reader, the Wingnuts will beat on the race issue.

And therein lies the seeds of the destruction of the Republican party. For every thinking minority in this country will look upon that and say to themselves: "If that is what they say about him, what would they say about me?"

Well, you know the answer to that. If you are Asian or Hispanic or South Asian or Arab, you know what they would say about you. If you are Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu or Muslim, you know what they would say about you. If you are gay or lesbian, you already know what they say about you, for they are not at all shy about it.

This campaign will make it very clear to a lot of Americans for a very long time to come that unless you are a white Christian, you are not welcome in the Republican Party, for the Republicans, by the virtue of this upcoming campaign, are going to align themselves morally with the bed-sheet-wearing cross-burning night-riding terrorists. Any casual look at the demographics for this nation will show that if you are running a political party that has an unstated policy of excluding everyone but white Christians, you will be relegated to a handful of states because even a lot of white Christians won't vote for you.

Even if Obama loses to McCain, the seeds of destruction of the modern GOP will be sown. That is bad, for a viable democracy needs at least two parties of relatively equal strength in order to function. Any way you slice it, even with free elections, a one-party state is not a good thing.

Just like the GOP rose from the ashes of the Whigs, another party will arise from the rotting corpse of the GOP.

It cannot happen soon enough.