NEAL GABLER HAS IT ABOUT RIGHT

In an op-ed in the LA Times, he writes about the GOP:

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. ... The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes.

I would take this further and say that the modern GOP is the heir of Joseph de Maistre no matter what Daniel Larison says. I have been reading a selection of the writings of de Maistre¹ and I have been astounded at how modern he sounds. Take this one snippet about war:

Now the true fruits of human nature - the arts, sciences, great enterprises, noble ideas, manly virtues - spring above all from the state of war. ... In a word, it could be said that blood is the manure of that plant we call genius.

Bill Bennett and Rod Parsley would agree completely!
¹The Works of Joseph de Maistre. Selected translated and introduced by Jack Lively.
New York, Macmillan [c1965] Snippet from "Considerations on France," page 63.