Saltsman, Blackwell and the RNC’s Self-Destructive Slide to the Right

Dennis Prager’s recent article about marital relations (in the broad and narrow senses) is part of this as well. That article was written on litmus paper. This is also what is behind the Sarah Palin boom. What they are trying to do is lay down markers that any remaining moderates must either implicitly endorse or leave the Party.

There is only one possible rationale. They must really think that there are a HUGE number of people — it would have to be 20 or 25 million nationwide to be worthwhile — who are rightwards of anywhere the Party has ever dared to go and who for that reason have never voted, or at least not since 1980 or 1964. I suspect they are right, but I think they will have trouble getting them to the polls, because these are what might be called undocumented citizens: paranoiacs who do not participate in the legal economy in any way. They do not buy anything that cannot be bought with cash; they do pay taxes; they do not have title to their cars or their land; they do not fill out census forms. The rural areas are full of people like this. The actual population of, for example, Knox County is probably three times what any government agency imagines that it is. There is neither the means nor the will to enforce any of the relevant laws. This is the Republican Party’s new base, but how can voter registration be redefined so as to accomodate their paranoia? Watch for third-world-style proposals tantamount to the “purple finger”.