One Possible Exception

 Actually, there is one qualification to my last post.  There may be one limit to how much crazy Republicans can get away with.

The whole "woke" or politically correct culture has been criticized, no only for its radicalism, but for being radical in a very superficial way.  Wokeness is first and foremost a set of rules on what is acceptable to say.  It can be incredibly exacting and annoying, but in the end it avoids going into any real depth.  Consider the response to the whole Black Lives Matter outburst this summer.  It led to taking down Confederate flags, renaming bases named for Confederate generals, newspapers insisting on spelling Black with a capital "B" and debates on whether it was acceptable to say master bedroom.  These are all cheap gestures that avoid the genuine hard work of police reform, much less inflammatory matters like housing access.  They cost little and achieve little.

Much the same can be said for Q Anon and other conspiracy theories.  So you say Democrats are running a massive child trafficking ring, that Democrats drink the blood of babies, and that the election was stolen from Donald Trump by massive voter fraud.  But let's face it.  These nutty conspiracy theories are also a very superficial form of radicalism.  They don't commit you to a specific program.

In many ways, Paul Ryan is more radical than Q Anon.  After all, Paul Ryan wanted to actually do something.  He wanted to turn Social Security into a 401-k and Medicare into an Obamacare style voucher program.  He failed because doing so was extremely unpopular.

And, although I cannot find the link, a defeated moderate Democrat pointed out for all their nuttery, Republicans seem to be good at avoiding bringing up actual substantive policies many of them favor that are broadly unpopular with the general public.  After all, Paul Ryan's proposals went exactly nowhere under the Trump Administration.  And the attempt to roll back Obamacare hurt Republicans.  And she pointed out that a lot of Republican leaders probably want to do other things, remove restraints on the sale of fully automatic machine guns, or limit access to contraception, that are also highly unpopular.  And, after all, you can call Democrats blood-drinking pedophiles and oppose any changes to Social Security or Medicare.

So that may be the one thing Republicans can't get away with -- something with clear, undeniable real world consequences that are unpopular.  And, predictable as the winter solstice, once Joe Biden is sworn in as President, Republicans will be calling for spending cuts.  They have vowed to reject any further COVID relief and are even talking about "entitlement reform," i.e., cuts.  These positions are broadly unpopular.  That is no doubt why Republicans refrained from doing any of them when they held power.

If Democrats are to have any chance of winning again, the only way to do it is to call Republicans out in it.