A Letter to Future Generations: "This Was the Straw"

My apologies for the dramatis of the post title but sometimes a loud tap on the crystal or a resounding throat clearing is necessary to get some attention. Vanity Fair blogger Kurt Eichenwald has written a post, that like a sawed off shotgun blast, is short but powerful. In The Five Reasons Romney/Ryan Must Be Defeated in 2012 and Why Republicans Should Hope They Are, Eichenwald unleashes a frightening, rational and clear testimony to why the contemporary Republican Party must, not only, lose this election, but be completely dismantled and re-booted. Ordinarily this would read like your average campaign season, "Get out the vote, the conservatives are coming!" rant. However in the circumstances of this election (economic, social, and cultural upheaval) the Party's more than willingness to demagogue using the most explosive charges to the American ear and their attempt to implement policies that seek to roll back over a century's worth of expansive legal and social rights is creating a circumstance in which, the very nature of progressive US society is being undermined. I will leave it to you to read the entire post but I will give you Eichenwald's Five Reasons, with  my own commentary.

1) They are Liars. Not your run of the mill political "Nudge nudge say no more" type liars, but the full on let's give Goebbel's experiment a test, type of Munchausenistas. Their lies threaten to render the most basic fabric of acceptable discourse in democratic campaigns. If they win with these lies facts will cease to have any purchase in US elections.

2) They are demagogues. The desperation of the Romney/Ryan team and the Republican Party as a whole lies in the reality that the society is changing in ways unrecognizable to the grass roots of the party (90% of Republican voters are white) and the fact that the doyens of the party (the Party of Big Business) are tired of fucking around and want their oligarchy NOW! So the political operatives are now dredging up the beasts from the darkest part of the American id, to convince it's herrenvolk, that now is the time to stand at the gates and beat back the barbarians.

3) They are economic arsonists. There is no need to destroy the village to save it but one must destroy the village to better profit from it. Naomi Klein says it best but in short the Republicans are ignorant because of their "Supply Side" theology and dangerous because of their socio-pathic greed.

4) They are threatening American Democracy ( such as it is insert mine) Unable to win a fucking election on their policies, the Republicans now are simply trying to re-instate the time honored traditions of Jim Crow voting rights. If all else fails requiring (likely Democratic) voters to name the number of bubbles in a bar of soap, will always do in a pinch.

5) They are Threatening America. All of these actions lead up to the result that the crypto white supremacist fundametalist fascist take over of the Republican Party is an existential threat to the US. As a "house divided cannot stand" half free and half nuts (with access to the ballot) threatens the very foundation of the Republic, which only remains so, if you can keep it.