From the current edition of The Economist, an assessment that near-civil war in the Republican ranks means Barry O lacks an opposition party, at a time when the world really needs one:
Is The Economist barking up the wrong tree, or is the Conservative end of US politics really in a mess, and does this matter over here?
Extract from "What's wrong with America's right"
Too much anger and too few ideas. America needs a better alternative to Barack Obama
Mr Obama deserves to be pegged back. This newspaper supported him in 2008 and backed his disappointing-but-necessary health-care plan. But he has done little to fix the deficit, shown a zeal for big government and all too often given the impression that capitalism is something unpleasant he found on the sole of his sneaker. America desperately needs a strong opposition. So it is sad to report that the American right is in a mess: fratricidal, increasingly extreme on many issues and woefully short of ideas, let alone solutions.
This matters far beyond Americaâs shores. For most of the past half-century, conservative America has been a wellspring of new ideasâespecially about slimming government. At a time when redesigning the state is a priority around the world, the rightâs dysfunctionality is especially unfortunate.
The Republicans at the moment are less a party than an ongoing civil war (with, from a centrist point of view, the wrong side usually winning). There is a dwindling band of moderate Republicans who understand that they have to work with the Democrats in the interests of America. There is the old intolerant, gun-toting, immigrant-bashing, mainly southern right which sees any form of co-operation as treachery, even blasphemy. And muddying the whole picture is the tea-party movement, a tax revolt whose activists (some clever, some dotty, all angry) seem to loathe Bush-era free-spending Republicans as much as they hate Democrats. Egged on by a hysterical blogosphere and the ravings of Fox News blowhards, the Republican Party has turned upon itself (see article).
IN FULL: The Republicans: What's wrong with America's right | The Economist
Too much anger and too few ideas. America needs a better alternative to Barack Obama
Mr Obama deserves to be pegged back. This newspaper supported him in 2008 and backed his disappointing-but-necessary health-care plan. But he has done little to fix the deficit, shown a zeal for big government and all too often given the impression that capitalism is something unpleasant he found on the sole of his sneaker. America desperately needs a strong opposition. So it is sad to report that the American right is in a mess: fratricidal, increasingly extreme on many issues and woefully short of ideas, let alone solutions.
This matters far beyond Americaâs shores. For most of the past half-century, conservative America has been a wellspring of new ideasâespecially about slimming government. At a time when redesigning the state is a priority around the world, the rightâs dysfunctionality is especially unfortunate.
The Republicans at the moment are less a party than an ongoing civil war (with, from a centrist point of view, the wrong side usually winning). There is a dwindling band of moderate Republicans who understand that they have to work with the Democrats in the interests of America. There is the old intolerant, gun-toting, immigrant-bashing, mainly southern right which sees any form of co-operation as treachery, even blasphemy. And muddying the whole picture is the tea-party movement, a tax revolt whose activists (some clever, some dotty, all angry) seem to loathe Bush-era free-spending Republicans as much as they hate Democrats. Egged on by a hysterical blogosphere and the ravings of Fox News blowhards, the Republican Party has turned upon itself (see article).
IN FULL: The Republicans: What's wrong with America's right | The Economist
