Letters to the Editor
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Blumenthal's Analysis Implodes
A logic in which "Republican" is freely confused with "conservative", "right-wing", and so forth, and "Democrat" with "liberal", "progressive", and "Left" is pretty hopeless as far as political philosophy goes. Fortunately, we can dispense with with this fluff, as only five or ten percent of the electorate vote on such abstractions as ideology, broad-scale policy, or character. The overwhelming majority vote for perceived immediate self-interest, tribal affiliation, image, emotion, or even because of the weather or the success or failure of their favortie teams in sports. That being the case, McCain, the old White guy, is virtually a shoo-in this year, because most Americans feel that the attributes of the presidency require oldness, Whiteness, and guyness.
In this the folk being pretty rational. While different candidates and parties put forward dogmas and slogans of very different styles, in fact there is little difference between them. The American ruling class are determined to run the world for as long as possible; therefore, we will continue to have foreign military operations like the twenty or thirty we have observed since World War II. They are impatient with monetary policy, therefore we will have more bubbles and bubble-inspired crises. They are okay with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Things are not going to change much, although the rhetoric used to justify the policies and activities of the ruling class may change. So one might as well vote on the image, because that's all the common voter will get anyway.
There is no reason in the present situation, then, for the Republican Party to "implode". There is no depression, civil war does not loom, the foreign wars are small and far away, the fanatics of the Religious Right have quiesced for the moment, and ecological breakdown is at least a few years off. Im Westen nicht neues.