Radical!

A year ago I would have said that the Republican party could not possibly move any further to the right.  After all, here was a party that had invented the individual mandate for health care in the 1990s, and now believed it to be akin to fascism.  A party whose leader in 2001 refused to blame Muslims for 9/11, but was now in fierce opposition to the building of a mosque two blocks and around the corner from the WTC site.  A party that had a nearly maximalist position on abortion.

But then the 2012 presidential primaries started, and I found out I was wrong.  Think about the new positions being staked out, not by fringe candidates, but by the frontrunners for the nomination:

• Rick Santorum isn't just against abortion, he's against contraception.
• Mitt Romney's new tax plan calls for a 20% tax cut on top of the Bush tax cuts
• Rick Santorum's tax cut is even bigger
• Santorum's criticism of Romney's tax plan is that it borrows too much from Occupy Wall Street, presumably because the top 1% still pay something.
• Supporting Israel isn't enough anymore; now Republicans are expected to absolutely support every policy and practice of the Israeli government, unless they can figure out a way to be even tougher than the Israeli government wants to be.

I've said this before; the Republican party has turned so far right that it's just staggering.  And this isn't about "polarization" in a neutral sense- Democrats have not made a similar turn to the left.  I've challenged some Republican friends to come up with one issue on which Democrats are now further to the left than they were in 2000 other than gay rights/gay marriage.  I've never heard an answer.

"Obama Derangement Syndrome" seems to have overtaken the right.  Hell, as soon as Michelle Obama began her campaign against childhood obesity, much of the Republican establishment started criticizing her while proudly eating high-fat foods.  These guys are crazy!