The "blue wave" is just the beginning

It's long been obvious to me that the "culture war" in our country (and elsewhere) does not allow the possibility of permanent compromise or negotiated peace.  The gulf is too wide and too deep.  In the end, one side must achieve total victory over the other -- and of course I want the winning side to be ours.  We can perhaps tolerate enclaves of fundamentalism here and there as long as they renounce all efforts to interfere with our culture and personal freedoms, but ultimately it's either our world or theirs, and theirs could only really be established by rolling back all the progress made since the time of Galileo.  It must be, and ultimately will be, our world.

This article by Peter Leyden and Ruy Teixeira convincingly articulates the same view of the Democratic-Republican divide which is, to a great extent, our country's political expression of that culture war.  "There's no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history  -- one side must win," the authors declare.  They argue that the country will ultimately follow the path shown by California, where the Republican party has been effectively wiped out except at the local level in peripheral areas, and policy debates take place within the framework of the Democrats' consensus.  A similar seismic shift at the national level would leave the Republicans relegated to just a few states and localities, with the federal government and most states under solid Democratic control, at least for several decades.

One can see signs which future hindsight will deem unmistakable.  With its rejection of science and objective reality, and its embrace of bigotry and religious fundamentalism, the Republican party would, in any other Western democracy, be a lunatic-fringe minor force; even in the US it can only win national elections by exploiting factors like gerrymandering, vote-suppression laws, and the anti-democratic effects of the Electoral College and the distribution of Senate seats.  Even with such unfair advantages, it is likely to lose control of Congress this year.  Trump and the party's embrace of him have brought things to the brink by stripping Republicanism of its last threadbare rags of sanity, and mobilizing an awakened populace against the madness.  To Leyden and Teixeira, the Republican losses in various red districts so far this year are harbingers of a total implosion.  Trump's win was a dead-cat bounce, a final thrashing paroxysm before the collapse.

They argue that this year's blue wave, however massive, must and will be only the beginning.  It will take at least one further election cycle to completely drive the Republicans from power -- but remember that 2020 will be a Presidential year, with far more Republican Senate seats at risk than this year, and that state governments elected in 2018 and 2020 will control the next round of Congressional redistricting.  A crushing victory is within reach.

Please read the article -- its inspirational and explanatory power will make you glad you did.