I have seen the future (politically speaking)

I have seen the future. It ain’t pretty. It also isn’t anything like what most pundits, commentators and so-called experts think it will be. The movement that everyone acknowledges is gathering steam is the steady rotting away of what used to be the “Grand Old Party.” It is dying, but in name only. It is, of course, being replaced by the Tea Party and the influence of their stalwarts like Cruz, Paul and Palin will continue to grow. But – and this is the key – their numbers will not increase but their influence will. The reason? Because the real Republicans are leaving.

The accepted wisdom in the Beltway says differently. The standard analysis in the MSM and the blogosphere is that the grown-ups will assert themselves, spank the disobedient children and send them off to bed until they learn to mend their ways. I don’t think so.

First, not enough of the moderates in the party are going to do this and for damn good reasons. They’ll get ‘primaried’ and having seen what can and has happened to some of their brethren, they’re scared. Second, these aren’t the kinds of children whom you can take to woodshed for a whuppin’. They fight back and they are in many cases bigger and nastier than you imagine. The grown-ups aren’t stupid. They realize that they are dealing with people who were delighted with the sequester, triumphant when the government was closed and deeply saddened and disappointed when they were unable to wreck the economic foundations of the country. These folks just don’t care about the well-being of Americans. They’re ideologues and march to a distant drummer whose sounds only they can hear. They’re not about to care what some dusty old GOP standard-bearers think and they are sharpening their knives for the next fiscal crises in January and February, the next chance they will have to bring it all down.

What’s going to happen is that the moderate Republicans are going to become Democrats. “Wow,” you might think. “That’s so cool. The Democrats will take back the House, control the Senate, win the White House and we’ll get real progressive policies in place.”

Not so fast. These folks will really be DINOs (think Joe Manchin, Dick Durbin, Chuck Hagel, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Michael Bloomberg). They do have socially progressive views and this will be good for maintaining the movements on things like immigration, civil rights and decriminalizing (some) drugs. But their economic views and their positions on regulatory reform in the financial sector are just what the GOP always stood for. Their perspectives on the free-market and international issues are right out of the Bush I playbook.

How and when will you know this is happening? As usual, follow the money. Take a look at where the cash starts moving. If I’m right, many deep pocketed moderates who usually put 75% or so on the GOP and hedged their bets with smaller donations to Blue Dog Democrats will begin shifting the balance. They will move more toward moderate Democrats, ones with progressive social values but conservative economic beliefs. In short, they will try to turn the modern Democratic Party into what the GOP used to be.

The future I see is one where the Tea Party will accomplish their goal of destroying the party that gave us the Black Dude in the White House by turning it into the Republican Party that they hate almost (but not quite) as much.

Irony knows few bounds.