Gracchus

Thunder on the right

In the uncanny mirror world of American politics, we now find people like Pat Buchanan getting angry at Bush for nominating an un-ideological corporate water boy (or rather water-girl) to the Supreme Court.

Well, being angry is Buchanan's metier, of course, and since it is mine as well, I feel a certain sympathy with him. More than that, Buchanan's position with respect to the Republican Party is not unlike that of the American left, such as it is, with respect to the Democrats.

Pat is, in his loopy way, a man with real principles. But his party is no more about principles than the other one is.

And this glaringly obvious fact should awaken us at last from the favorite liberal nightmare, the inevitable last ditch reason why you have to hold your nose and vote for a Gore or a Kerry: namely that these wild-eyed barbarians in the Republican Party must be prevented from putting ideologues in control of the all-holy Supreme Court.

Of course they don't want to put ideologues on the court, or not in the sense that the liberals mean. Sure, they want dependable corporate stooges on the Supreme Court (Ms Miers used to do work for Microsoft, for example). But apart from the odd noisy clown like Scalia, they really don't want these guys and gals getting ideas in their heads. That could be bad for business.

Now my man Pat Buchanan is, for better or worse, a man with ideas in his head, and so of course he is disappointed. He is a prisoner of his Lesser Evil party, just as my liberal friends are prisoners of theirs.

It's fear of the Democrats that keeps Pat in the Republican fold, just as it's fear of the Republicans that keeps wankers like moveon[please!].org in the Democratic fold. (I know, the comparison is very unfair to Buchanan.)

So... suppose... just suppose... that some well-placed stick of political dynamite blew the Democratic Party sky-high. I don't know what it would take; sex tapes of Hillary with Karl Rove? No, the liberals would swallow that too. But bear with me here. Let's run with the hypothesis. The Democratic party all of a sudden evaporates, like the Deacon's one-hoss shay. What would happen next?

Is it not plain as day that the Republican party would immediately do the same? Each defines the other; if one breaks up, the other will find that Othello's occupation's gone.

So, ye timorous lefties, let Pat be a lesson to you; the surest way to destroy the Republicans is to destroy the Democrats first.

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Posted by gracchus at October 4, 2005 09:25 PM | TrackBack