GOP's Lunatic Streak Is Bad for America

Watching right-wingers react to health care reform can be entertaining for a while, writes Paul Krugman, but it's ultimately depressing. It's just not fun seeing "extremists take full control of one our two great political parties." This isn't just fringe activists, either, as evidenced by John Boehner's declaration of "Armageddon."

Today's GOP is indeed the party of Reagan, but only the Reagan as "antigovernment fanatic," Krugman writes in the New York Times. The party is now a haven for "paranoid fantasies." In the short run, Democrats may benefit. "But in the long run, it’s a very bad thing for America. We need to have two reasonable, rational parties in this country. And right now we don’t." (More Republicans stories.)