Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

With this kind of faith, human reason is not considered part of God's image; it is, rather, suspicious.

And so I think the hope for reasonable politics is a split in the Republican party, which is possible if there is a devastating defeat on Tuesday.

It will be extremely difficult to find the figure to bring the Palinites and the moderates back together. And part of the analysis will be that McCain had a muc better chance to move to the middle with Lieberman or other. Lieberman, Bloomberg, Schwarzenegger, Powell, Witman, Pawlenty, Snowe, even Giuliani, would make a powerful core of some center right party, fiscally conservative, socially centrist and non-dogmatic, ready to reduce unwanted abortions, tolerate homosexuals with civil rights, etc.

It would also serve to keep the Democrats honest and center left like Clinton and Obama.

But the right wing will remain so. I only hope their claim of being 25% of the population is at its hight point.
 

Welcome, Feodor.
 

Thank you! I grew up on the other side of the red river, but that was another lifetime ago. I am now thoroughly Yankeefied. Except for being a Mets fan.

And you can't take the Dallas Cowboys out of the boy.
 

:-) Come back any time.
 

From what Ive seen, contradictory evidence just makes the fanatical more fanatical...I don't see the far-right ideologues turning on their leaders...I see them rallying around them more tightly if confronted with the future you describe.
 

I'm suggesting a probable impossiblity: three parties.

One Democrat.

One Center Right that is led by the Powels, Bloombergs, Liebermans, Ridges, etc.

One Right wing that is lead by Palin, Brownback, Huckabee, etc.

Only a devestating loss could prompt a break away moderate Republican group.
 

As an observant but insane and dangerous person once said...
"Why nationalize industry, when you can nationalize the people?

Take everything that is good, right and decent, and their conception of the national identity to ONE WORLD VIEW...and watch the transformation of society take place...expecially when the only people opposing it are a derided and despised "liberal intellectual elite", and a "corrupt liberal media".

Yeah, we've already seen a country go down that road.

Unfortunatly, it is the formula that often wins elections.

Go ahead and call Godwin on me...but only if you have also read Mein Kampf and read the man's speeches.
 

I'm rooting for Fedor's scenario...plus, I think that if you had a center-right party, it would be joined by the blue-dog Democrats.
 

I envision four parties: right-wing, left-wing, Blue Dogs, liberal Repubs.

And they have to partner up different ways on the hot-button issues.
 

If the Blue Dogs kept their left-of-center posture, and rejected their current path of being the pawns of big-money, I'd probably be able to go along with them...
...I just worry that a lot of their "moderation" has to do with the checkbook.

Then again, they don't get the party support they need always, so their money has to come from somewhere...
 

The 20th century saw the two major parties lose large constituencies, first, over Progressive politics (Bull Moose Republicans), then over race (George Wallace is the original Blue Dog Democrat; that he repented later in life makes little difference, because it was too late for the damage he did to our polity). As the dust settles from this election, any of the new coalitions and splinterings written about so far are possible, certainly, but far more likely is the following:

The Democratic Party will be a very loose coalition of moderately left-wing politicians newer to the political process, older liberals like Biden, Kennedy, and Dick Durbin who will enjoy a certain amount of validation after a generation of ridicule, and some centrist politicians who currently inhabit both parties - the Blue Dogs and the moderate Republicans who are fleeing the sinking ship of the Republican Party. I expect a couple party switches, even by those elected as Republicans, to the Democratic Party, but not many.

The Republican Party will continue to hew a hard-right line for the next election cycle; I expect the Congressional races in 2010 to be an interesting time. Should the Democrats maintain some semblance of control afterward, centrists will begin a battle within the Republican Party, and it will move, very slowly, very grudgingly, and with much noise and recrimination, to the center. My expectation is that in a decade or so the parties will again be competitive in many areas, as the bitterness of this election, and the crisis through which we are currently living is far more past than present.
 

There is no prospect looming to push the Democrats toward a split. There is no ideological commitment strong enough, or divisive enough. Pro-life is composed of absolute privacy advocates and those with ambivalent feelings re abortion but will not sacrifice privacy for it. War is sometimes necessary for almost all Democrats.

Long term success, however, breeds strongly varied constituencies. A centrifugal force of confidence.

For Republicans, however, who have had 26 years of success, that force is creating deeper fault lines.
It depends on how much the right wing can suppress their disappointments. They barely got enough to stay with McCain.

The moderates, however, have already attended a conference - in Oklahoma City wasn't it? - to consider breaking away, but where they ultimately decided that Obama was already soaking up too many independents for an independent centrist movement to get air.

In New York, we waited a long time to see if Bloomberg was going to go out on the limb. Oklahoma City changed his mind and he instead chose to change NYC statutes without referendum in order to be on the mayoral ballot for a third term in '09.
 

Here is my picture of future events. Obama, the favorite all over the world wins and there is great celebration in all liberal circles. Not sure how long it will take, but the One World Order starts to kick in and dissenting voices to the leftists views will be silenced and either disappear or suffer great persecution and suppression. The economy will be failing worse and worse, people will turn against each other over even a morsel to eat. After 7 years of terrible tragedies and every unimaginable horror that can be done, the King of Glory will come and slay the enemies of Israel and justice will be done.
 

Familiar refrains.

And I predict mass cognitive dissonance among dispensationalist fundamentalist end-times folks when none of that happens.
 

And then, A "White Buffalo Calf Woman" will purify the world. She will then bring back harmony and spiritual balance.
 

Taking Anonymous' lead, let me offer a couple other scenarios that cannot be dismissed logically, because they are certainly not, strictly speaking, impossible.

First, during the first eighteen months of the Obama Administration, someone at a lab funded by the Energy Department invents a practical transporter, a la Star Trek. Because it reduces mass to energy then back again, it is not limited to size; because it uses pin-point GPS for sending out, there is no need for a receiving terminal. The energy-crisis ends within five years as the mass-production of transporters allows for travel of up to 7,000 miles without the degradation of transported object. National borders become redundant, because there is no way to prevent the transportation of persons or goods, including illegal or interdicted items. Commerce soars, the entire structure of human habitation changes as roads become grass-overgrown parks, the interstate highway system crumbles, and practical transport to anywhere in the world arrives en masse.

Another possible scenario in a possible Obama Administration is that we discover that, in 1947, Barack Obama's grandmother was vacationing in New Mexico, when she saw strange lights in the sky; taking her young daughter with her, she watched as a strange object fell to earth. The beings who emerged told the young girl that she would bear a child who held the fate of the world in her hands. Unfortunately contaminated by radiation, which killed her before she could see the day arrive, she told her young son about the prophecy. During his first inaugural, Barack Obama confesses to an astonished American people that, in fact, he is the fulfillment of a prophecy made to his mother by two aliens. He also says that he was not, in fact, born in Hawaii, but on Titan, the clouded, largest moon of Saturn, where these aliens had a combination hospital and rest area for weary travelers.

Indeed, I could invent all sorts of scenarios, following Anonymous' lead.
 

I do so love those rousing Scottish War Drums they had in the first part. Forget the middle. There will be not a middle this time.
It is War, and War it shall be.
Will "They" even believe they have lost?
Consider this:
"TOKYO — A high-ranking Japanese military official was dismissed Friday for writing an essay stating that the United States had ensnared Japan into World War II, denying that Japan had waged wars of aggression in Asia and justifying Japanese colonialism.

The Defense Ministry fired Gen. Toshio Tamogami, chief of staff of Japan’s air force, late on Friday night, only hours after his essay was posted on a private company’s Web site. The quick dismissal seemed intended to head off criticism from China, South Korea and other Asian nations that have reacted angrily to previous Japanese denials of its militarist past."
 

Good production values. Pity the content was the usual pandering to fears about issues that (with the exception of abortion) will never affect the average person. [BTW, when it comes to abortion it's astounding how many of those pro-life types go running to a clinic when it's their own daughter who's suddenly inconveniently pregnant.]

The type of "faith" that focuses on issues like same-sex marriage is, IMHO, no faith at all. If a heterosexual couple's marriage is so weak that it would be "threatened" by gays getting married, too, it's not much of a marriage, is it?

There has been a fair amount of sociological research done that shows that, despite the noise they make, fundamentalists are actually shrinking as a percentage of the population. Which is one reason for the noise -- they're feeling threatened.
 

Your scenario, people realizing that their fundamentalists leaders have duped them, relies on the assumption that they make data based decisions. They do not.

The data for the last 30 years has shown their leaders to be soaking them dry for money to support campaigns that will, they're told, be the end of abortion in the United States. Yet that never happens, and they keep supporting the same people, the same party, demanding no accountability and no results.

The data for the last 10 years has shown their leaders to be soaking them dry for money to support campaigns that will, they're told, eliminate every conceivable right for gay people. Yet here we are. Still employed, still living our lives, and making inroads in many areas in both secular and sacred institutions. Here the results are mixed, they did get their hateful Defense of Marriage Act passed (signed by a Democrat.) They have managed to get some hateful anti-gay marriage amendments passed, but that's certainly not the result of efforts by their Republican allies (the Governator is against Prop 8, for example.)

Those folks simply don't make data based decisions. If they did they certainly wouldn't be supporting the status quo in the Republican party. I'm not saying they'd suddenly see the light and support Democrats, but they'd certainly not be supporting the same do-nothing Republicans.

So don't worry about them. They're going to continue on as they have for the last 30 years ... as if they're opinions actually matter.
 

Good points, Nan and Alan.