According to Paul Krugman "The G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit."

In a New York Times Op-Ed, Paul Krugman discusses the danger of ignoring the "Teabaggers".

The key thing to understand about that rally (last week in Washington) is that it wasn’t a fringe event. It was sponsored by the House Republican leadership — in fact, it was officially billed as a G.O.P. press conference. Senior lawmakers were in attendance, and apparently had no problem with the tone of the proceedings.

What all this shows is that the G.O.P. has been taken over by the people it used to exploit.

Furthermore, the loss of both Congress and the White House left a power vacuum in a party accustomed to top-down management. At this point Newt Gingrich is what passes for a sober, reasonable elder statesman of the G.O.P. And he has no authority: Republican voters ignored his call to support a relatively moderate, electable candidate in New York’s special Congressional election.

Instead the "Conservative Party" chose Doug Hoffman, a "carpetbagger" who did not live in the district, did not understand the issues facing the voters, but actively embraced the wing-nutty philosophy of the Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin crowd. He lost, but not by the kinds of numbers that should make any of us feel secure.

Real power in the party rests, instead, with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (who at this point is more a media figure than a conventional politician). Because these people aren’t interested in actually governing, they feed the base’s frenzy instead of trying to curb or channel it. So all the old restraints are gone.

Essentially the patients are now running the asylum.

In the short run, this may help Democrats, as it did in that New York race. But maybe not: elections aren’t necessarily won by the candidate with the most rational argument. They’re often determined, instead, by events and economic conditions.

In fact, the party of Limbaugh and Beck could well make major gains in the midterm elections.
The Obama administration’s job-creation efforts have fallen short, so that unemployment is likely to stay disastrously high through next year and beyond. The banker-friendly bailout of Wall Street has angered voters, and might even let Republicans claim the mantle of economic populism. Conservatives may not have better ideas, but voters might support them out of sheer frustration.

I had a conversation on the phone yesterday with somebody who was thrilled with the idea of the Republican party actively destroying itself. But I expressed concern at what might rise up to replace it. Sure Democrats might reap the benefits in the next major elections, but what happens ten years from now? If this fringe group, now rapidly becoming the Republican majority, stay disaffected, they may become even MORE polarized and disconnected from reality.

In the not too distant future Americans will be dissatisfied by the Democrats, it may be happening even now, and start looking for an alternative. What if the ONLY alternative were a Glenn Beck listening, Sarah Palin loving, "Teabagging" conservative? What if THAT person gets into the White House, or becomes the majority in the Senate?

The crazy thing is that THIS is exactly what Sarah Palin said she would be focusing on when she gave her resignation speech, and against all logic, it actually seems to be happening. She has tapped into a truly frightening fringe group of Americans, and somehow managed to validate them in the eyes of the Republican party.

And now instead of simply being used by the GOP, they are infecting the GOP and causing it mutate into a party they feel more comfortable with. And if the Republicans fail to change enough, they will simply bleed it dry and take up residence in its decaying corpse.

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here — and it’s very bad for America.

On this last point I am not in total agreement with Mr. Krugman. I believe that pointing out the lunacy of the group with the use of humor and parody is very powerful indeed.

I think that a great deal of credit can go to Jon Stewart for pointing out how ludicrous the Bush administration was through the use of humor, and Tina Fey's contribution to the outing of Sarah Palin, as a pretty package with nothing inside, cannot be celebrated enough in my opinion.

The bottom line is that, regardless of which medium is used, it is important to constantly reveal the agenda behind Sarah Palin and the wing-nuts, and to open the eyes of the American people to what is really happening in the political arena right now.

(Please click the title to read the rest of Paul Krugman's important article.)