Snowe Fall

Mark expressed pleasure at the announcement that Olympia Snowe is retiring, but I wish she could stay. And I wish there were more Republicans like her. With the fall of the last Republican moderates, I fear more deadlock in Congress in the near term, but the eventual fall of the Republican Party in the long term.

It's a common trope that both the Republican and Democratic parties are gathered at the extremes of the political spectrum, but it's the Republicans that have all clustered in the deep end of the ideological pool. The truth is, there are almost no liberals in the Democratic Party anymore.

You need look no further than President Obama for an example. Republicans insist he is a radical socialist, but he has compromised on dozens of issues, agreeing to solutions Republicans once embraced wholeheartedly just a few years ago. Including, but not limited to, the health care mandate, which Obama strongly opposed during the 2008 election campaign but agreed to in a compromise with the health care industry.

Democrats generally reflect the political bent of the districts they represent, ranging from right of center (there are dozens of Blue Dog Democrats like Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona until she resigned, and so on), to liberal few (Dennis Kucinich). Even though they don't agree on every little issue, the common thread among Democrats is that they want government to work for the people they represent.

But the vast majority of Republicans in government are now radically conservative no matter where they come from. They have either always been that way, or have been forced to change (like John McCain) or face being "primaried" by the Tea Party and Grover Norquist. Republicans like Snowe and Arlen Specter are being drummed out of the party. The only real exception is Scott Brown, because half a Republican senator from Massachusetts is better than none. (But if he loses, Republican pundits will say it's because he was too liberal and didn't do enough to "differentiate" himself from Warren.)

Republicans constantly carp about "political correctness," but they've got their own ideological enforcers who will viciously destroy any Republican who dares stray from the one true faith of Grover Norquist.

There are dozens of pro-life Democrats in Congress, but almost no pro-choice Republicans. Even though a thoroughly convincing libertarian argument can be made against the government telling you what you can do with your own body. There are hundreds of anti-gun control Democrats, but no pro-gun control Republicans. There are hundreds of Democrats in Congress who agree that we need to do something serious about Social Security and Medicare to avoid a future default, that we need to plan for balancing the budget and reducing the deficit, that we need a strong defense. But there are essentially no Republicans who will admit that real taxes on corporations (not the official rate, which almost no one pays) and the wealthy—especially capital gains taxes—are too low and a combination of budget cuts and selective tax increases are needed to fix our long-term problems.

The dictatorial nature of the Republican Party does not bode well for its long-term survival. Americans actually believe in freedom, and will grow tired of being constantly lectured about it by people who want to take their right to self-determination away, to be told when and with whom they can have sex, when and how they can have kids and who they can marry.

If one good thing comes of the bile and sewage the Republican primary campaigns and their Super PACs spewed over the airwaves, it will be a reversal of the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision. Perhaps then Republican candidates can focus on what their constituents want and need, instead of the demands of the cabals at Grover Norquist's Wednesday meetings, corporate board rooms and Fox News.