Know Your Norquist

All those Greenies and Naderites who grumble about the permanent duopoly on political power in Washington, D.C., can take heart: It's over, according to an emerging consensus. The bad news: It's been replaced by a near-permanent monopoly. Of Republicans.

At least, that's the bad news for liberals if the new presumption of perpetual Republican dominance in Washington turns out to be correct. Although it's only a theory, it's one with a surprising number of adherents. Even parts of the left have begun to embrace it. But the idea's leading proponent is, unsurprisingly, a conservative: Grover Norquist, the longtime Rasputin of the right. "The Republicans are looking at decades of dominance in the House and Senate, and having the presidency with some regularity," Norquist told the New York Times last week. A few days earlier, he made the same point, with slightly less confidence, to CNBC Washington bureau chief and Wall Street Journal columnist Alan Murray: "For the next 10 years in the House and Senate, we're looking at Republican control." In the Washington Post last month, Norquist wrote of a "guarantee of united Republican government" that "has allowed the Bush administration to work and think long-term."

The GOP's Prophet of Permanence

Norquist sees every election as world-historical. "The 2000 elections will decide the Democrats' future," he wrote in 1999. A year earlier, he fretted that if President Clinton "retakes the House for liberalism, his place in history will be on a par with that of FDR or JFK." Norquist has counterfactual nightmares along the same lines. He told Reason