I've always thought of political ideology as a clock with 12 being the center. If one hand of the clock is anywhere between 3 and 12 on the right and the other is anywhere between 9 and 12 on the left they would both be within the realm of sensible ideologies of either side. But when one side begins to drift into extreme's past either 3 or 9 our system of government is in trouble. No matter how you look at it, the farthest extreme of either ideology would be 6. There would be no difference between the 2 except whom and how either side got there. Either way we end up in a totalitarian system.
As virtuous as we on left think we are, without a responsible conservative opposition can we be trusted not to eventually become just as power hungry as the far right is now? I'm not so sure. If the republicans implode the hope would be that current centrist democrats would break off to replace them. I could live with that, but I'm not sure how plausible that is.
It is extremely important in this experiment that is our country to have strength, responsible strength yes, in both ideologies. We need to be really concerned about a republican party off the rails, losing any ties to democracy. Not only if the extreme right assumes power in the party but if they can assume power in the country. I fear that's where they're headed and if we can fend off the right wing extremism it will probably be at the expense of the republican party itself. In the short term we on the left could possibly shout victory. But in the long term without an adversary, the left could be doomed to the same fate of extremism
I would say using my clock analogy that the left is at 10 and the right is at 5 currently. There are still a few "good" republicans out there in the political space, but even more in the voter space. I hope to hell they can humble themselves just a bit and rid themselves of this infectious extreme right wing fascism that is hijacking their party. Just MHO.
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