Collapsing Into Nothing

Posted on 20. Nov, 2009 by Michael Preston in Uncategorized

As something of a nerdy birthday present to myself, I downloaded J.J. Abram’s re-imagined Star Trek movie the other day from iTunes. If you haven’t seen it, it’s quite good; it’s visually stunning, action packed and actually funny. The plot itself is a bit hard to describe (there’s some time travel/alternate reality stuff going on), but a big part of the movie involves a substance called “red matter” that can create “singularities”, or black holes, from which nothing can escape.

Strangely, I found myself thinking about red matter as I read about the increasingly competitive Republican Senate primary between Charlie Crist and Mark Rubio in Florida. Crist, the current governor of Florida, is fairly moderate and has actually embraced some of the policies put forth by the Obama administration (he was, for example, one of the few Republicans to endorse the stimulus package). Rubio, on the other hand, is a hard line conservative and a darling of the Tea Party movement. The Tea Partiers, who claimed a scalp earlier this month by forcing moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava out of a highly contested race in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, are now seeking to do the same to Crist.

The problem for the GOP is that the Tea Party protesters – an activist portion of the Republican base that clings to a variety of extreme viewpoints – are increasingly dictating the direction of the party. They’re seeking purity by weeding out moderates at a time when when expanding the base (even with all of the hassle that entails) seems to be a better political strategy (especially in light of demographic trends that seem to indicate a further erosion of the Republican base).

In purging the centrists within their midst, it’s as if the GOP decided to douse itself in red matter. The party is collapsing in on itself at an alarming rate and my only hope is that the rest of us aren’t sucked into the black hole with them.