The only weekend talking head show worth watching is Up with Steve Kornacki. Here's the embed of a segment from yesterday's show that I think is worth watching: The discussion frames the question well. Will the business elites be able to take back control of the Republican party? Soto thinks they will, but Wilentz and the unfortunately named Krystal Ball don't. They think that in the short run the Tea Party will continue to dominate the GOP completely and that the GOP will have to have a "64 moment" before it will learn to play nice again. Let's hope that '14 is the new '64. Bernard thinks it's possible because of what I've been saying, which is that there's a realignment in the works here in which moderate Republicans are just moving out of the party and becoming Independents or conservative Democrats.
I can live with the Democrats who are conservative on cultural issues, so long as they make sense on economic ones. They represent ethnic blue collars both in terms of their values and economic interests. They are in that sense old-school, pre-1970s Democrats. But a couple of years ago I would have said, kick the corporate DLC Democrats out--the ones that are liberal on cultural issues but conservative on ecnomic issues. They are the old-school, pre-1970s, moderate Republicans. But the guerrilla tactics of the Tea Party have persuaded me that the only important thing now is that the GOP be prevented from having majorities in either the House or the Senate.
I don't like the "American system", but I don't think chaos will produce anything better. I'm in full support of a muddle-through scenario, and let the real creative problem solving happen locally, in the states and cities.