Can/Will They Govern?

Dave Weigel, channeling David Frum, on what might happen if the Republicans gain control of Congress:

After the election, says Frum, after the GOP has recovered in record time, either it's going to have to move away from its campaign rhetoric or it's going to be unable to govern. "What happens in January," Frum says, "when the GOP majority arrives and the Bush tax cuts expire, the U.S. economy has deflationary shock, we don't have a program for pulling the economy out of inflation, and we don't have permission from party supporters or permission from voters to compromise? You have people arriving in office with highly apocalyptic vision of a president but programs they don't know how to execute on their own. It's a formula for crisis."

Yeah, sounds about right. I've been thinking all along that Republicans running now are nothing more than populists who really have no idea what they're going to do once they find themselves with some measure of power. They aren't going to get anything past the Obama veto juggernaut, and so then they'll be forced to run in 2012 with a do-nothing record, worse than the Democrats from '08-'10 because stuff actually did get done (just not to their liking).

In astronomical terms, the Republican Party, heated up by the Tea Party movement, is a red giant, soon to implode and burn itself out, turning into a black hole of socially conservative rhetoric where absolutely no good idea ever escapes.