I keep hearing how "we need a viable conservative party." Why? What for?

[thucythucy]

42. Not "perpetuity"

and certainly not "absolute."

If by "absolute" you mean unfettered by law, due process, and the Constitution, then no, not what I want at all.

And not "perpetuity." Just long enough for liberal policies to be enacted and actually take hold.

Social Security was almost violently opposed by conservatives as the first step on the road to Stalinism. As was Medicare--which Reagan told us in 1964 would lead to the total stripping away of our democratic freedoms. But those programs remained in place long enough so that--despite repeated Republican efforts to undermine, dismantle, and destroy them--the vast majority of Americans oppose any such tampering with these highly successful programs. Just one result: prior to the passage of Social Security a huge percentage of the elderly lived in poverty, a figure that has been substantially and hopefully permanently lowered. Even conservatives--who might not recognize these programs as "Big Bad Government"--support these programs, hence the "Keep the government out of my Medicare" signs we used to see at Tea Party rallies.

If we could institute such popularly supported programs as paid parental leave, substantial government subsidies for child care and adult day care, adequate medical leave, and massive investments in green infrastructure--most of which have been in place in European democracies for decades--and keep them in place long enough to show results--all these "liberal" ideas would become so mainstream as to be unalterable. Add to this a return to progressive tax policies of the 1950s and '60s, investment in public school education and community mental health options, and yes, raising the minimum wage to a rate equivalent to what it was in the 1970s, and we'd see an enormous shift in American life, and all for the better.

Conservatives can then compete all they want for the vote--as indeed they're able to compete now. But if we could just put a lid on their anti-government wrecking long enough for all those reforms to reach fruition the country would, to paraphrase Nixon's infamous Attorney General Mitchell, "swing so far to the left you won't be able to recognize it."

Oh--and add to that holding power long enough to return the Supreme Court and federal judiciary to the standards we had when Thurgood Marshall was confirmed--and this nation would indeed have the potential to become that "shining city on a hill" conservatives always claim us to be.

All this is possible, but not as long as the national Republican Party or some similar national conservative party holds its current outsized power and ability to obstruct, derail, distract and destroy.

To sum it all up for a bumper-sticker: "Republicans are why we can't have nice things." To which I would add, "conservatives as well."