Tyvor, I derive no satisfaction in the current degeneration of the Republican Party, for essentially the same reasons that you outline. Every country that operates as a functioning democracy needs at least two viable political groups in order to maintain integrity and direction. In fact there are many periods in history (and indeed in my own adult lifetime) where I’d have voted for the Republicans over the Democrats if I’d been a US citizen.

The GOP as it stands now though is the radical bastardised monster of the rabid ultra-right, and as you note it has no vision, logic, or objective philosophy that can lead the USA successfully through the rest of the 21st century and into the future beyond. It’s now merely a vampiric parasite on the nation, sucking the lifeblood for its own benefit, and all that will be left is a husk of the empire and stories of what once was, and was willfully thrown away. And like a vampire’s victims the followers of the GOP are lulled into unthinking, unaware dreams of their own making even as they’re being exsanguinated…

There are a few Republicans (a very few) that have integrity and wisdom, but the great unwashed rump of US society seems to have been inflamed with overweening self-interest and conspiracy theory to the point that they’ll not let reason back into the GOP fold, come what may. This is a disaster for the whole country, and indeed for the world.

I think I understand (and share) the feeling that motivated that comment but there’s that old saying: Be careful what you wish for.”

As much as I dislike the present incarnation of the Republican Party, I would not like to see one party government by Democrats or anyone else. The founders of this Republic were intelligent and sophisticated enough to recognize the need for checks and balances and that should include political parties — although they apparently did not envision the flowering of such things in the 19th century and beyond.

We’ve had enough of the merely venal and wackos of various ideologies running the GOP. It’s past time it was taken over by people with more rational ideas than lackeying for the already-rich, science denial, eliminating the separation of church and state, redistricting for entirely political advantage, restricting voting (especially for minorities) for political advantage, etc.

I hope that there’s a similar movement to draw to the senators’ attention that the whole of the US, the rest of the world, and history for centuries into the future are watching the Senate’s decisions, and how each individual is standing up to be measured and remembered. Each senator needs to understand that they are accountable to more than the short-term expedients of their cronies, and that they will be held to account for the consequences of their actions even long after they have left the Senate. And if shame and conscience cannot move the GOP senators to do the right thing, their capitulation and abrogation of duty should be so publicly carved in stone that the Republican party is destroyed for generations, if not forever.