Is it though, in this current climate? The return to sanity will take years, if not decades.
Ugh. One has to wonder how bad things will get before they get better.
That's assuming that things ever do get better, and that there is, in fact, a return to sanity. I'm not betting on that at this point. Even if it does happen, it's going to take decades at least, given how firmly entrenched a large portion of the population is in their extremist anti-reality attitude. Looking at the history of American culture, and particularly religion in this country, extremism characterizes this country, and in particular the religious factions in it. This latest wave has been building since at least post-WWII, and there is no signs of it lessening anytime soon.
she said, cowering in fear.
Exactly. Anyone in the GOP who doesn't play ball with the Trumpistas is going to find themselves out of a job come next election. We're talking about an electorate, and increasingly party, who has adopted the slogan "better a paedophile than a Democrat" unironically in at least one election, and has repeatedly shown not just a willingness, but an eagerness, to support the worst examples of humanity for public office, rather than risk electing a non-extremist whose views differ from theirs. Candidates who held staunchly conservative values were beaten out in primaries by nutcases like Moore simply because they were not sufficiently extremist, and not openly licking Trump's boots.
The extremists are gaining political power, and what few moderates still exist on the right have demonstrated that they are not willing to do anything to limit that power, but fall in line behind it, if they want to retain their positions of power. If Collins votes against Kavanaugh, I have no doubt that the GOP will find someone (most likely male) sufficiently extremist and Trump-worshipping (or at least making a pretense of doing so) to please the mob, and spend considerable resources to shove that candidate into her office at the earliest opportunity. For a party that claims to be all about individualism, they have little tolerance for anyone who isn't a fully-compliant "team player".
