The following rant is pure speculation, devoid of citations, that probably resulted for a bit too much espresso.

The thing about fascism is that, besides being immoral, its impressive, scary, and organized. The Bush administration, never worthy of admiration, was at least once worthy of fear and respect for their accomplishments. But now the neo-fascist elements of the Bush admin have fractured into sheer dysfunction, and they won't have the support to restart them again. The folly of tax-cutting with spending increases is becoming increasingly evident and our monetary policy is clearly shot. A tax increase in the near future seems unavoidable.

Iraq, too, is shot. Its too early to tell if Zarqawi's death means anything(no matter how hard Petagon planners WANT it to mean something), but even if it did the US would be facing a broke, half-destroyed nation (which we're not rebuilding, by the way) that is essentially three or more sovereign nations at each others throats, complete with death-squads and militias that are reminiscent of Reagan's work in Latin America in the 80's (John Negroponte, anyone?). Can you imagine a more intractable strategic position?

But Latin America in the 80's remained mostly under the radar of the US public and media, and overall I would guess you could break it down to one key issue: American money, and training may have been involved, but young Americans were never having their heads cut off, young Americans were not getting blown up in suicide attacks. Most of the nation has not a clue what the Iran-Contra scandal actually meant because such scandals seem esoteric to people who don�t understand the system. But when a 19-year-old Alabama kid gets his head blown off, people know what that means. When Marines get a little out of hand and kill a dozen or so innocent civilians, people know what it means.

In Iraq we have all the elements of the worst Latin American problems with poverty, nation building, debt, and paramilitaries thrown in with the tactics of hardcore Islamic Jihadists and Reagan's militant sons at the helm. It was a recipe for disaster in its inception and the fact that planners screwed up so thoroughly post-Saddam didn�t help. In the meantime, however, the US has a moral responsibility to help the people who we have bombed and whose lives we have destroyed. If we unilaterally withdraw you can expect either a break-up of the country or a massive civil war resulting in the leadership of a strong man who will control the country with an iron fist. Sound familiar? And to complicate it all just a little more, here we have the Hamas-led government basically declaring war on Israel and the West frustrated over how to deal with Iran. We left Latin America to burn and starve in the 80�s, but we cannot afford to do the same in Iraq. And we won�t, because Bush and sons and everyone else are concerned about what Iran might do with a power vacuum in Iraq. And there is all that oil.

But if Iraq has been fractured by American policy, so too has American policy been fractured by the planners of Iraq. The strong conservative republican movements of America have been betrayed by their hero. The republican machine was effective because of its unity, and its rubber-stamp legislative mentality that has prevailed post-Ginrich seems to be dissipating. The machine is broken.

The immigration debate is kind of case in point. Conservatives (save wall-street) are not behind Bush, the democrats have their timid half-assed populism, and neither side has the remotest idea what is happening politically. The issue is too divisive and insane for their poll analyses to help them. The immigrants rights movement emerged, at least to the mainstream media's eyes, out of nowhere. But it will be difficult to for anyone other than the liberals to capitalize on immigrant constituencies. How can the Republicans simultaneously court Latin American voters while lobbying to make them felons? And while we can expect some voting cleavage because of the Latin American social-conservative Catholicism, the immigrant�s rights issues is destined to ultimately become a liberal issue. And its going to completely change American change American politics.

I would like to see an all-out war of ideas in 2008. Now more than ever America has the possibility of truly overturning the two-party system. Both parties are heavily fractured, with the Repubs having difficulty controlling their evangelical, libertarian, and wall street bases. The democrats are faceless as they have ever been, but in a couple of senators at least (Pelosi, despite her problems, Boxer, Obama, Biden, and others) we see shreds of political conviction and polls show their advantage.

Having European-style Coalition governments in the US makes more sense now than ever before. There are hundreds of fractured constituencies. Imagine, for instance, a coalition government between a mainstream liberal party, a version of the Socialist Democratic party (it would have to have another name) and the Libertarian party. The constant infighting in bargaining might result in a moderate government, less belligerent than the current one, with an emphasis on civil liberties and limited, effective government programs and a heavy reduction of all of this bullshit big-brother militarism the neocons masterminded. Of course, a coalition between a evangelical republican party and a libertarian would be just as likely, but the point is this could break open real possibilities for American representative democracy.

America was always too much of a pluralistic society for a two-party system to make sense, especially with the electoral college. But today, trying to contain all of the beliefs we�re seeing from conservatives and liberals under two umbrellas seems to be fundamentally illogical.

A note: the smaller the election, the more important your vote is. So if you can find the energy to vote in your local system do it, but definitely vote in the Senate and House races because they are going to be a quite insane and a couple dozen votes could change the outcome.