The strand of McCarthyism, as referenced by Andrew in this post, is real, frightening, troubling, and disgusting. It has, in my opinion, an opposite in the racism and Confederate revanchism that plagued the Democratic party for so long.

The Democratic repugnancy drew from populist impulses gone bad; the Republican repugnancy draws from a genuine concern for community gone bad.  There is nothing wrong with urging our national government to consider “America First,” insofar as that call does not include debasement of the rights of other sovereign nations, or hatred of those within our borders.

Of course, it’s a very thin line to walk, and Andrew is right to draw this conclusion:

The relapse to McCarthyism is the sign of a politician; rising above it is the sign of a statesmen. This age is sorely lacking in statesmen.

It’s worth considering how long it took the Democratic Party to overthrow their sordid tendencies; and I suspect that the war for the soul of American conservatism will be just as difficult. I laud Andrew on citing the example of Ron Paul, but even his staffers and allies were unable to avoid the allure of alienating the Other, lapsing into deplorable rhetoric to gin up votes.

Matt Yglesias, on the new dynamics in the House of Representatives:

Instead, Yglesias says, the Senate is far more important. But if he thinks that the House debate won’t play a role, he’s sorely mistaken. The Democratic Party can try to force an un-compromised agenda through the House, and succeed, but it’s not as though the GOP Senators have their coverage of those debates blacked out. Once the battle lines are drawn in the House, and Cantor can afford to focus solely on principles without having to worry about maneuvering, the compromising work in the Senate will be much harder for the Democrats. In fact, what Cantor thinks matters more now, when 2010 is the main issue for the House GOP, than it did when he was helping to twist arms for votes.

On a broader scale, it’s incredible how little time it took for the arrogance of the new power to establish itself. Much of the failure of the Bush administration can be pinpointed at the callous, uncompromising manner in with the GOP dealt with the out-of-power Democrats during it’s two-branch dominance. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and greater power corrupts greatly. Now, one might say that Obama has a better “temperament” for dealing with the opposition, an unquantified stance that I’ll accept for the sake of argument. This will ultimately mean that the measures forced through will be far more moderate in their scale than Bush’s — making the perceived “Blue Dog” advantage Yglesias cites irrelevant. The progressive gains will occur over a greater period of time, perhaps, but will also be less sweeping in scope.

Incidentally, what are the numbers of new Democrats v. numbers of new “Blue Dogs” in the House?