But what’s really true is that, like Jane Smiley, I too have seen this coming. The behavior of today’s Republican Party is a direct outgrowth of its historical political posturing and policy-making. I think for me that awareness came the day my father, a lifelong Republican and a conservative in the traditional mold, announced that given the behavior and policies of Richard Nixon he would henceforth never again vote for a Republican. That was over 30 years ago but Dad could see the writing on the wall even then. It is no coincidence that two of the Nixon Administration alumni most angered by Nixon’s downfall and most dedicated to creating an Imperial Presidency with all its trappings of power and privilege, are Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, in my opinion the two most responsible for the current ongoing destruction of a United States governed by its Constitution.

From the Smiley commentary, but read the whole thing. It’s a winner.

I don’t doubt Dean. I always thought that for a Republican, he had something of a conscience. What amazes me is that Republicans who are now exclaiming at what has happened to the Republican Party (and yes, I talked to my mother this morning) didn’t see this coming. Everything, every value, that the Republicans have held up for my lifetime as desirable has been pointing us in this direction. As I’ve said before on the HuffPost, all of this is the necessary consequence of traditional Republican values, not an accidental byproduct. Or maybe I’ll put it this way — when you reject common humanity, value profits above people, practice sectarian religion, feel contempt for the choices of others, exalt wealth, conflate consumersim with citizenship, join exclusive clubs, daily practice unkindness rather than kindness, and develop theories, such as those of free market capitalism, that allow you to congratulate yourself morally for selfishness and short-sightedness, then being a gang member is in your future.