I can't see the Democrats getting their act together in the way envisaged by this commentator. The Democrats don't have the vision or the discipline or the organization, and they are not suited to pulling off major projects like reforming the GOP. After all, they are Democrats, they don't have a unified political philosophy, and they are not fanatics, they are just a loose coalition of everyone who isn't Conservative.

I do agree with the author's conclusion that the GOP has gone very strange on us. Not only has this introduced an element of irrationality and zealotry to American politics (not to mention some very strange bedfellows are gathering under the Republican tent). That is not good for any democracy, it has also destroyed the Republican Center we used to rely on as a counterweight to the excesses of Democratic exuberance and lack of restraint.

I have no idea what is going to happen next, the only recognizable historical examples I have which might be applicable are not very reassuring: pre-Civil War America, and Weimar Germany. History does not repeat itself, but occasionally you see familiar patterns. And the ones I've been seeing lately are scary as hell.

The fundamental characteristics of modern America are a declining economy, a change in demographics, and the final post WWII rehabilitation and stabilization of the world order after the fall of Communism, a strong Europe and a rising Asia. This is making a lot of people feel threatened, it ain't 1955 any more, and it never will be again.

Its not just alienation of the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, for lack of a better umbrella term, but the confusion of many of the immigrant communities of the late 19th century, now fully integrated into American life. The new Mexican and Central American immigrants will not be assimilated like the Southern and Eastern Europeans of a century ago, because they are too ethnically homogeneous. We won't have a lot of strangers here who will have to assimilate to survive. We'll have a cultural and linguistic bloc who even if they learn the language, will still see themselves as a cohesive culture, one that has, after all, been living continuously in Western CONUS since the 1600s. To them, the Anglos are a historical blip that will soon fade away.

Couple all this with a world of strong international business competition, multiple regional powers, declining resource stocks, economic distress, and climate change, and the fantasy of the Republicans of returning to some 18th century pastoralism are revealed for the pathetic nostalgic foolishness they really are.

The future will not look like Franklin's Boston or Philadelphia, or Jefferson's Virginia. It will be a lot more like LaGuardia or Walker's Manhattan. But we should not fear this. The modern world was born in 1920s New York. It marked the rise of American Hegemony in the 20th century, and we might just be able to pull it off again.