Minus 160

Current political divisions in Congress are bitter, but hardly unprecedented. It's interesting to compare divisions in the US today to those of 1850. Then, even more than now, an enraged minority was willing to tear the country apart to get its way. Tempers in the Senate ran high enough that pistols were drawn.

Somehow, though, the stakes today look incredibly smaller. In 1850, the whole economic system of the South was at stake, as was the freedom of a substantial portion of its population. What's at risk today? Relatively minor modifications in the health insurance system? Someone said that American Conservatism today was an inferiority complex masquerading as an ideology. I don't think that's far wrong. Conservative ideas were roundly rejected by reality and by the voters, and they are scrambling and praying for a sign from above. Not that I minimize the hazard of such feelings. One might similarly say that militant Islamic radicalism is an inferiority complex in religious disguise.

The Republican party didn't yet exist in 1850, but the elements that created it were antithetical to the modern Republican party in almost every way. Not entirely coincidentally, the geographic focus of the party was more or less the negative image of that today. The modern Republicans have decided to bet everything on the failure of the Obama administration. Given the challenges which disastrous Republican governance presented it with, that failure is hardly unlikely, but if Obama can fix the economy, or get lucky enough for the economy to fix itself, the Republican party might find itself going the way of the Whigs.

If the Republicans do come back to power, bringing their ideological crackpottery in full manic form, the Union might face its greatest challenge in a long time.