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Yes, there will always be hucksters. And spending all one’s time fighting them is a foolish enterprise.

On the right today, they are so numerous, prominent and shameless, their pathologies so ingrained in right-wing media and politics, their wealth so corrupting to young talent, and their pathologies so seldom challenged by those who know better, that Republicans are operating at a persistent information disadvantage. (Too many believe even their own bullshit.) The Bush Administration showed that it’s possible to win at the ballot box anyway — but that the victory isn’t worth much, save an ill-conceived war in the desert, exploding deficits, and a financial crisis. Improving on this metric won’t solve all the right’s problems, or answer every question about the right way forward, but it would go a long way toward mitigating its least defensible excesses. For some, the resulting improvements would be enough to make the GOP preferable to the Democrats.

As yet, I say to hell with them both.