Falling over the Fiscal Cliff

What a grand day for Republicans in the U.S.: They prevented taxes from going up on 99 percent of U.S. households — including the richest among them, from whom President Obama had wanted to ask more. Five of the six Bush tax cuts will remain in place. The fiscal cliff compromise is, then, a significant partial win for the conservatives. And in the upcoming debate over the debt ceiling, they can demand further cuts to social programs to avoid adding to the deficit. In past days, Republicans would have celebrated such an event as a political victory over their adversaries.

But not anymore. Most Republicans feel like losers because they are pursuing a totally wrong-headed ideology. Since communism disappeared as enemy number one, they have turned their attention to the imaginary enemy in Washington. Their goal is to not only lower taxes, but to overthrow the U.S. government by denying it the money necessary to operate. That, in a nutshell, is their entire agenda.

Thanks to this ideological blockheadedness, it should come as no surprise when their party leads the nation over the next fiscal cliff.