Good (and a very many) words.

From a question on Quora wondering what the future is of the Republican party. I am reprinting the entire answer because I couldn't pick a favorite part, although I will highlight:)

It's starting to become a monotonous preamble, but I identify as a Jeffersonian Republican with a dash of Teddy Roosevelt. At this point, I'm not sure the party has a future, because the party is no longer Republican. 

Ensuring that government is funded adequately to meet what we charge it to do? As Dick Cheney said, "Deficits don't matter." Enshrining fundamental rights? The Bush administration brought us indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, and torture, and tossed aside habeus corpus. Responsible, considered foreign policy? Nope. Civil rights? Nope. Conservative ethics? Utterly gone. Pursuing scientific advancement? Not so much. Right to live your life as you like? Gone as well. Valuing education? Don't be silly. Separation of church and state? *&@# that, we don't need religious freedom! Value the Republic? No need for that, right? 

In the end, the party has become something of a self-parody, steeped in hypocrisy and weirdness, and I'm sorry to say that most of it can be traced to the absorption of the Southern Democrats (who were pissed off at JFK's and LBJ's acceptance of the civil-rights baton from the Republicans who had been carrying it all those years) during the Nixon administration during the period of his "Southern Strategy." Certainly, the false piousness, the surge in racism, and the hysterical xenophobia started around that time, and has now virtually taken over the party—and I don't see it changing. 

I'm not saying that the Republican party has always done well in this regard, either. Historically, we've had brilliant moments, and we've had appalling ones. Actual conservatives would admit to this, but those are scarce in the GOP now as well. McCarthyism was a black stain on the Republican Party's reputation that we will never be able to erase, but at this rate, we'll never overcome it, either. 

The modern-day GOP cannot convince any person who puts rationale and logic before hysteria and panic, and so it has devolved into playing election shenanigans through voter intimidation, lies, and laws designed to block people from voting. This isn't a new tactic, but it used to be the Southern Democrats who did it a lot. Thanks, Nixon. 

These aren't conservatives—they're theocratic, hypocritical, dystopic radicals who cannot compromise, think, or be productive. They have spent four years blocking this president's policies, so that they can point in his direction now and claim that his policies don't work. They lie, insult, smear and distort; they are full of bile and feces, and fling it indiscriminately. 

There will always be people who delight in this sort of behavior, and so there may always be what this party has become. But if enough thoughtful people who know what Republicanism was meant to be, who understand the constitutional principles at stake, who would dare to shout down the hysterics and the liars, who would dare to be honest, who would dare to shame those who would sacrifice the Republic on the basis of some of the most bizarrely inaccurate interpretations of the Bible and the Constitution ever rendered in this country, finally come together with one voice, the party might be restored. 

I wish I could see that happening. The GOP has become a threat to the Republic, and will be so until it comes to its senses. Perhaps another party will come along to replace it. Something will eventually happen, but I dread some of the forms that could take.

And all of this was written 2 years ago and it's still fucking happening!!