The Reality-Based Community

The Republican Party has declared, rather proudly, that it does not have any philosophical commitment to grounding itself in reality. That was very, very true during the Bush Administration, it was very, very true during the first two years of the Obama Administration, and it is very, very true now. But I think it is most worrisome in the current dynamic, for the following reason: during the first part of the Obama Administration the Republicans had barely any power, whereas during the Bush Administration they had both power and responsibility. My hypothesis is that, while having a party that has power without accountability is bad and having a party utterly divorced from reality is bad, having a party divorced from reality that has power without accountability is more than doubly bad. Why? Well, obviously if a party is out of power you don't care too much what it's like. But if a party is in power in a way that makes voters inclined to hold it accountable for things in general, then it has an automatic incentive to do things that produce beneficial real-world short-term results. Thus, even if they don't care philosophically about aligning policy with reality, as long as they want to hang on to power they'll try to make macro conditions good in the real world. So you never saw the Bush Administration messing with the debt limit, and you did see them try to rescue the economy during the '08 crash. Likewise, the opposition Democrats in '07-'08 were sufficiently grounded in reality that they never did anything as grossly irresponsible as what the Republicans are doing now, even though they benefited from the same strange power/responsibility dynamic. But now we have a party completely irresponsible and psychotic (in the technical sense) that can push public policy in as nonsensical directions as it pleases, and that has the power to do so, but can at least plausibly believe that it will never be punished for doing so. That's dangerous.