To know, know, know him, is to loathe, loathe, loathe him, and they do--

Sullivan has been compiling some of the full-tilt open worrying going on amongst conservatives over the possibility of Newt Gingrich getting the GOP nomination, because they are pretty sure he's going to blow it, big time. He has a point--the scariest thing about Gingrich is that he would lay the whole agenda of today's GOP bare.  He can absolutely dissemble--especially when it comes to defaming "The Secular Socialist Left Machine" or whatever he's calling it these days, but about his big ideas--

Those are not lies; they are the explanation of the rules of civilization, you guys!  Gingrich has always had a talent for finding the lowest instincts of the GOP base, and making whatever he found there (misogyny, racism, religious bigotry, homophobia) sound like virtues. The problem is, the line between bullshitter and believer is hard to discern--and what's more, Gingrich doesn't actually always know when he's "gone too far" for the delicate sensibilities of the pseudo-centrists of the Village. His self-importance doesn't exactly endear him to the people he's worked with, either. And even though the Tea-Party-influenced GOP of the past few years owes a lot to Gingrich's 1994 election-year taking of the House with the "Contract with America", the path he lead the GOP on accelerated the path it was already on with Nixon and then Reagan--demographically more male, white, and Southern. But the country is changing, and that strategy is no longer demographically valid as a) it's numerically stupid since women, LGBT* people, people of color, and people of all religious persuasion--and none, also vote and b) why would anyone even think whites, males, or southerners are still as homophobic, misogynistic, or racist as that strategy suggests? Gaahhh! It's pretty backwards-thinking for a supposed futurist!

Sullivan's take is that by revealing the sick vein of cognitive dissonance that has infected the GOP, maybe the party will be reformed.  (How? Forty years in the wilderness? Losing the White House for a generation? Then it gets better?)

Me, I'm more optimistic. The party of Joe McCarthy, Watergate, Nixon, Iran-Contra, the Southern Strategy, the Iraq War, the war on women's right to choose, the war against marriage equality, the party of marginalization and reinforcement of privilege and the status quo--the party that saw the arc of history bending towards justice and shouted "stop!"--chokes on Gingrich's big head full of stupid ideas and rattles towards its ultimate end-phase: division into Libertarians, Constitutionalists, White Nationalists, Dominionists, and all the little tribes that once fit under a big tent, until a mighty storm of hot air blew the tent away. And they never were able to use the government to benefit privilege or exclude minorities (like stupid voter-ID laws or gay-marriage bans, now) or innumerately use supply-side witchcraft to screw up the economy again. Amen.

A girl can dream, no?