And will it be to late when it gets that bad to do anything about it? That's my fear. I believe we are drifting inexorably toward an authoritarian police state not unlike that typical of what you find in Latin America. Drifting isn't dramatic--it happens slowly, incrementally.
One little thing taken in isolation doesn't make much of a difference in people's imagination, So it's hard to fight; it's hard to galvanize public opinion around a single issue, whether it's the Alito nomination or the Medicare prescription bill, a clever piece of legislative legerdemain emblematic of the big money dynamic that makes this administration run. It was made to look like a benefit for the elderly but is mostly a benefit for big pharma and the insurance companies.
So one by one there are these victories for the big-money right, and in the short run our lives don't seem to be affected much by it. But at some point it's all going to catch up with us, and it won't be pretty. And it will be too late to do anything. It's probably already too late; that's why it doesn't matter that the GOP, and its leadership in the Congress and the White House at the lowest ebb of their popularity can still pretty much do as they please. We've drifted far enough already that nothing can stop them. The Alito nominnation was a bellwether. The House elections this fall will be another. I'm not optimistic.