Drawn and quartered

Sidney Blumenthal educates the Brits on the disintegration of the GOP:

The nativist Republican base is at the throat of the business community. The Republican House of Representatives, in the grip of the far right, is at war with the Republican Senate. The evangelical religious right is paralysed while the Catholic church is a mobilising force behind demonstrations by Hispanic immigrants. Every effort Bush makes to hold a nonexistent Republican centre generates an opposing effect within his party.

Bush's victory in 2004 depended on the management of highly volatile constituencies: the religious right was shepherded by referendums against gay marriage; the abortion issue was used to elevate Catholic conservatives and isolate progressive-minded bishops; nativists were captivated by hosts of enemies in the whirlwind of September 11.

And at the calm center of this swirling mess? George W. Bush.

I find it difficult not to link the GOP's dismal approval ratings with Bush's own atrocious showing of late. The GOP has hitched its wagon The Cult of W. for close to seven years now, and it's easy to see why. Each of those volatile constituencies that Blumenthal lists could see themselves in W.

The Business Establishment saw W. as their own.

The Nativists believed that W. would always put America First.

Conservative Christians thought him to be a humble man called to serve God.

What a difference two years makes.

The Establishment is learning that W. is an awful CEO by any standard (as if his stints at Harken and as owner of the Texas Rangers didn't raise any red flags).

The Nativists are coming to grips with the fact that W.'s first loyalty is to the almight dollar, not his fellow citizens.

Conservative Christians are hopefully learning that God(dess) works in mysterious and incomprehensible ways.

And as the Cult of W. evaporates, so too, does the Party which enabled this orgy of incompetence and arrogance to run the show for the last five years. The Rubber-Stamp Republicans have made a mantra out of defending Bush, impugning the patriotism of its critics. The GOP - the party which controls all three branches of government, let's remember - is viewed as being complicit with the colossal fuck-ups that are touching the lives of millions of people in the United States and globally, or at the very least as asleep at the switch.

Blumenthal concludes with this prescient observation:

The Republican party as a whole is repeating the self-destruction of the California Republican party. In 1994 the governor, Pete Wilson, advocated proposition 187, which threatened to deny social services, healthcare and education to undocumented workers, and it aroused the Hispanic sleeping giant. From that moment California became one of the safest Democratic states, and only an anomaly like Schwarzenegger, an immigrant, could emerge as a viable statewide candidate. Ronald Reagan's party is a thing of the past.

C'est ça.