The New Obstruction

Democrats support for No Child Left Behind, the 2001 tax cut, the post-9/11 war resolution,the Iraq war resolution, the 2003 tax cut, the Medicare prescription drug bill, and the bankruptcy bill certainly makes them appear to be Republicans. While many Democrats are in fact Republicans, very few Republicans are Democrats. Relying upon and supporting Democrats produces such dismal results because they have no intention of doing anything in the best interests of the commonweal unless those interests reward them as well as Republican interests, and a reason why Republican obstruction is so effective. Until real liberals, instead of corporate whores, are elected to Congress, the well being of the nation will continue to decline.

"Unfortunately, as Matt says, it may be a shrewd calculation on their part"

I don't think this is the correct way to look at this, and I think this is a much scarier phenomenon.
Political scientists and philosophers distinguish between normal politics, where it is understood by everyone involved that they all have to live within the system for the rest of their lives, and revolutionary politics, where a sort of millennial/messianic dream infects some, who imagine that a new world is being born and who cares about what happens as the old world is destroyed --- tomorrow will be completely different and the ocean will be made of lemonade.

Everything I see about the current GOP suggests to me that it is the messianic true believers who are in charge. Oh sure, there are some professional politicians who think they still run the show, but I suspect, even they, in their heart of hearts, realize the train has lost its breaks and is headed where it is headed.

As for the revolution these millennial types have in mind, what is it? Well, it's every bit as insane and incoherent as what you'd expect from the Jacobins or the Bolsheviks, even more so.
You have your religious nuts who seems to imagine that starting a nuclear war in the middle east will bring jesus back.
Your have your libertarian types who seem to imagine that it is the drowning of the federal government, not the dictatorship of the proletariat, that will usher in Marx's withering away of the state.
You have your black helicopter types who seem to wish for some combination of Hitler's Madagascar program (ship all the darkies back to where they came from) and a return to isolationism (presumably based on using american natural gas for electricity and american coal to gasoline for fuel).

Optimists seem to think incoherent and incompatible programs don't pose a threat. This strikes me as foolish. Wreckers can do an AWFUL lot of damage along the way (witness the last 9 years); and there seems no obvious reason why a charismatic politician cannot arise able to harness all this stupidity and anger into words that seem acceptable to all these factions. The WHOLE POINT, the WHOLE DANGER of revolutionaries is that they don't care about the consequences of their actions because they don't have to live with them --- tomorrow is COMPLETELY different from today. Doesn't that describe the current GOP? Who cares about future debt? Who cares about future infrastructure? Who cares about future education? Who cares if every other country in the world hates America? Who cares about the power of the president or the rule of law?

Why not an American Hitler or American Lenin? You think the constitution will stop them? How well did the constitution work to stop the behavior of the Bush years? Five justices said yes in Bush v Gore, and they may well say yes to whatever the Huckabee administration feels like doing.

The saving of the finance industry from collapse in 2008 was rationalized as saving America's way of life. What the finance industry bailout did was save the corrupt form of corporate controlled government that has led to no wage growth for thirty years and a return to regressive taxation with concomitant social welfare cuts. Saving the finance industry has ensured the destruction of America's high living standards. Had the finance industry been allowed to collapse the pain for everyone would have been acute, but it would also have been immediate, impacting the rich, middle classes and the poor. Such a shock to the entire political economy at least would be democratic in its consequences, and would have forced many voters to consider the consequences of the Supply Side economics that led to the downfall of the world's greatest economy. The bail out saved the wealthy classes, but started a long, yet clandestine decline in everyone else's fortunes. The delaying of a general decline in living standards has helped to maintain the power of the political classes, while an immediate suffering of the consequences of Reaganomics may have led to the needed wholesale changes to America's political economy. Now real political change will be much more difficult to achieve, as the moneyed interests have accumulated so much wealth and power that good governance and democratic participation have become almost impossible.