http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/us/politics/25mood.htmlIf you don't understand what I'm referring to, read the above article about Larimer County, Colorado. This once blood-red county in northern Colorado has recently grown weary of the economy. Small businesses have suffered, and maintaining a middle class life in the area has become more and more difficult. They leaned Democratic in '08, but they don't know what to make of the elections this year. This article portrays them as confused and torn between two unknowns, neither of which seem satisfying to them.
As occurred in the early part of the Twentieth Century, the progressive "reforms" preceded a more radical era during the Great Depression. Simply, the help offered to the working class during the 1900's failed to produce real change, and when the bottom fell out of the American economy, a push for workers' rights swelled.
I don't believe that the cultural and economic nexus of the present mirrors the 1900's-1930's, but I do see signs that indicate that the more the middle class gets pressed, the more agitated and anti-establishment it will become. This independent county in Colorado is a good example (I lived there for six years myself). The fact is, if the Republicans take over Congress, and make the grave mistake of continuing to press for policies that threaten the middle class, the backlash will be tremendous. They count on an improvement in the economy to maintain power, but the world is much different than it was in 1994 and 1980. Entire industries within the United States are leaving, and the opportunities for establishing a stable, middle-class life are becoming less and less. And their policies will only aggravate a tenuous economy.
Many in the middle class will become radicalized, and they will begin fighting for policies that even wealth distribution. They will demand greater government intercession, granting Democrats both inside and outside the beltway the political impetus needed to make real radical change to the structure of American government and the American economy. The Republican Party, already in ribbons and captured by the most radical, culturally-protective fringes of conservative America, will die.