Has the GOP Been Taken Over by Extremists?

IT points us to an interesting article by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, so these gentlemen are not exactly raging liberals. One would hope a good cross section of people will pay attention to what they have to say. Here's a taste:

...The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

“Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around” are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias, while political scientists prefer generality and neutrality when discussing partisan polarization. Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.

It is clear that the center of gravity in the Republican Party has shifted sharply to the right. Its once-legendary moderate and center-right legislators in the House and the Senate — think Bob Michel, Mickey Edwards, John Danforth, Chuck Hagel — are virtually extinct...

Do go read the whole thing, then come back and let me know if you agree with IT; have the Republicans gone insane?

J.