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1:38

(In »Everything is religion«)

Thus the parties had exchanged positions with each other and were struggling hard not to give the game away. What until recently was considered exemplary and heartily embraced by the Republicans is suddenly not only rash and reprehensible in general, but also something that in addition actually defaces the holy vision of the special case of America that the Founding Fathers had formulated once and for all time – a turnaround fully comparable to Josef Stalin’s embracing of the concept of socialism in one country instead of Lenin’s and Trotsky’s ambitions to export the Bolshevik revolution across all of the industrialised world. But where Stalin, to make absolutely certain, uses purges, intrigues and liquidations to maintain party discipline, it is sufficient for the members of the Republican resistance to rely on psychological turncoat mechanisms and loyalty to the collective with which one identifies – and which guarantees one’s status and support. Soon enough the unthinkable – that Obamacare might be the subject of a Supreme Court ruling because of the principle of the individual mandate – is not only thinkable, but a reality. It is sufficient that a few key people in the legislative body change their opinions for the entire flock to trot obediently along behind them, eagerly cheered on by their supporters in the media. And suddenly the Republicans are also enthusiastic advocates for an activist Supreme Court, on which all their hopes of victory are now pinned, which is also an entirely new, and almost revolutionary experience for the party.