What Government Shutdown And Other GOP Assaults on Democracy Are Really All About

alternet.org — Conservative policies don't poll well, and the movement took a thumping in 2006 and 2008. Looking forward, the Republicans see their party sailing into some powerful demographic headwinds. Their true base are married white Americans who identify themselves as Christian, and that group is in a free-fall decline in the American electorate. Conservatives have always done a better job playing the “long game,” and they have their eyes set on a future in which majorities will be harder to come by. Thanks to a moribund economy, the Tea Party swept into Congress and state-houses across the country, and they want to take the opportunity to grab the prize while they can — restructuring government in a way that will endure beyond a single election. It's the Shock Doctrine at work, complete with trumped up deficit “crisis” as the Right's cassus belli.

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