The longtime weakness of the GOP has set up today's danger-Fernandez

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11/5/11, "Just like the Tea Party," Richard Fernandez, Belmont Club, Pajamas Media

"EE Schattshneider once wrote that “democracy is not to be found in the parties but between the parties”. You won’t find freedom inside the Democrat Party or even the Republican because it is not the business of parties to foster democracy; it is their business to seize power through elections.

It’s in the interaction between the parties; what goes on outside the closed circles where the democratic space exists. The growing fascism in American discourse is therefore partly the result of the failure of interaction. The Republican Party has historically been rolling over.

• It has retreated for so a long time it does not know how to advance; and
  

• that has created a vacuum in the democratic space.
  

• Its weakness set up the present danger.

What the Tea Party did is reopen the debate by reviving the space “between the parties”. And that has been infecting the Republicans. But it has also set of alarm bells on the Left. They fear it; and are thus determined to strangle the newborn ideas in the cradle. And while I do not for once believe that Walker, Christie, Cain or Palin are perfect people, they are the loci of change, the gel culture as it were, wherein the bacilli most feared by Left can grow and prosper. And therefore they are being targeted with a focus as concentrated as a laser beam by the Left.

Their goal of Occupy is not — has never been democracy. Their goal is to seize power. Never expect them to give you a break. If people want democracy they have to go out and create their own positions; they need to rattle the Republicans, compete with them, invigorate them; and shame them. And by their existence they will expand the democratic space, even among the Democrats.

Listen to the mindless repetition of slogans by the Occupiers above. They would have made the most mindless of totalitarian adherents of the 20th century proud of their initiative by comparison.

It is too bad things have come to this. But that is how it is."

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(I don't usually like to post from Pajamas Media but this had some good points. I agree establishment Republicans have put us in danger but they've been working on it for over 20 years-especially the past 10. I don't agree that "invigorating, competing or shaming" them is possible. They've already said, "come and get us." We gave them a flood of new people in the House in Nov. 2010. They didn't ask for the new people, would be happier without them, and prefer being in the minority. They despise us. They have no concept of America. The fact is some of these guys should be in jail. ed.)

via John Hendrix