The other day Paul Krugman talked about the sad and diminishing state of Republican brain power:
“How many Republicans know, for example, that government employment has declined, not risen, under President Obama? Certainly Senator Rand Paul was incredulous when I pointed this out to him on TV last fall. On the contrary, he insisted, “the size of growth of government is enormous under President Obama” — which was completely untrue but was presumably what his sources had told him, knowing that it was what he wanted to hear. For that, surely, is what the wonk gap is all about. Political conservatism and serious policy analysis can coexist, and there was a time when they did. Back in the 1980s, after all, health experts at Heritage made a good-faith effort to devise a plan for universal health coverage — and what they came up with was the system now known as Obamacare. But that was then. Modern conservatism has become a sort of cult, very much given to conspiracy theorizing when confronted with inconvenient facts. Liberal policies were supposed to cause hyperinflation, so low measured inflation must reflect statistical fraud; the threat of climate change implies the need for public action, so global warming must be a gigantic scientific hoax. Oh, and Mitt Romney would have won if only he had been a real conservative. It’s all kind of funny, in a way. Unfortunately, however, this runaway cult controls the House, which gives it immense destructive power — the power, for example, to wreak havoc on the economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. And it’s disturbing to realize that this power rests in the hands of men who, thanks to the wonk gap, quite literally have no idea what they’re doing.”
Unfortunately, I see nothing that will change their advantage. The redistricting that protects the GOP advantage, that is the bedrock of the GOP advantage, will be in effect for the rest of the decade, through the election of 2020. I don’t think President Obama will achieve anything in the rest of his term, and I’m not really optimistic that President Hillary can conquer this wall. This is going to take hard-fought trench warfare, getting Democrats elected to state legislatures in red states, along with all the money that is going to cost, to stop this ignorant minority from clogging our political process or our future. It’s a grass roots war, and the Democrats need to start waging it today.