This is well worth reading in full, if you have the time (I recognise that not everyone is just twiddling their thumbs waiting to get deported). It's a couple of years old (which is why it doesn't mention that the Democrats getting hold of Congress didn't get its ratings out of its
disastrous slump), but (among other things) it constructs a far more elegant version of an argument I made at the end of
May. Specifically, I argued that there is an inherent paradox to any Republican administration because American conservatives, by and large, don't want a powerful federal government except in very specific areas, which means that the administration's
specific failures can be painted as
general failures of federalism. As Wolfe says:
Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt
to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in
ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding.
Really, read the whole thing. It perfectly captures the ongoing GOP problem that found its nadir in Bush Jr.
h/t to Political Animal.
Days until exile: 5.
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