Rachel has been asking almost nightly for an explanation of why the 'pub party has lurched as far right as it has. She says she doesn't understand, for example, their new hysteria about women's reproductive rights - everyone's for that matter. While I think she may be asking for an explanation with tongue planted firmly in cheek, let me have a go at explaining how I see it.
First, the 'pub party had distilled itself down to a fairly isolated community of true believers even before the teabagger wins of 2010. The party was in a position like that of the Titanic as the bow dropped under the water and the stern rose. The teabagger wins were like the breakup of the ship when the stress on the hull became more than the hull could bear. We all know what happened next.
True believers not only believe that they and people like them hold exclusive possession of absolute truth, they reinforce that belief by relating as little as possible with people who might hold different views. They create an intellectual bubble and seal themselves in it. Their beliefs become truth and anything that challenges those beliefs, even facts, become lies. They close their minds. They aren't capable of changing them. They aren't interested in enlarging the tent or broadening the base. They only seek the support of those who would reinforce the conclusions they have already reached.
But I would point out, this has happened before, in 1964. I was alive and politically involved in that election year and for the two or three years before it. I remember it all very clearly. I was living in Texas, which was at that time not too different from what it is today other than the facts that it had a smaller population and was more segregated. You couldn't drive any distance on a public highway without seeing at least one "Impeach Earl Warren" billboard. People were outspoken about their support for the John Birch Society. The Texas media (newspapers for the most part) were largely to the right of Louis XIV, so you don't hear so much about "mainstream" media conspiracies. The day when the "City Edition" of the New York Times was obtainable on the newstand in the larger cities didn't dawn until the spring of 1965, so it wasn't the bugaboo that it has since become among those who follow the extreme right wing lifestyle. But the Goldwaterites and a lot of other Texans were absolutely convinced Barry was going to win in a landslide. Some of the national media weren't entirely skeptical about the idea either, at least until President Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on Nov. 11, 1963. After that, only the die-hard Goldwaterites believed their man would win the Presidency in 1964. But believe they did and with an hysterical fervor only true believers can possess.
We all know what happened. Goldwater led the party into the worst ass-whipping it had received from the electorate since 1936. It was a monumental beating from the top to the bottom of the ticket and almost everywhere in the country outside of the deep south and Goldwater's home state of Arizona. LBJ even romped to a win in Texas.
And, Rachel, one thing that may explain the 'pub party of 2012 and what it is doing is the fact that there just aren't that many 'pubs around nowadays who remember the 1964 disaster (for them) and why it came about. Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.