re: #11 ignoranceisfatal

The reason is plain and simple: power. I’ve been watching this since the 80’s. In spite of Ronald Reagan’s landslide, tremendous incompetence from the Democrats and considerable coattails, the Republicans only managed to gain the Senate. I think that the Republicans hitched their wagons onto the former Dixiecrats to break through in the 90’s. Problem was, by then the pragmatic, responsible leaders who inspired me to register R from the day I was allowed to vote were gone by then. I simply cannot reconcile that W is H’s son. Finally, Karl Rove managed to leverage a solid 33% base into that putative durable majority. The radical right (I refuse to call these radicals “conservatives” because they not only aren’t, but if you are trying to transform the society into something it never was, you can’t possibly be conservative). Anyway, as the vortex of the right spun ever faster through the 00’s, pieces finally started to fly off as that cyclone spun tighter and faster, and here we are today.