Paranoid GOP Could Make US 'Ungovernable'

The kind of paranoia that made last week's health care reform protesters wave signs showing corpses at Dachau is nothing new in right-wing American politics, but the fact that these people actually wield power is new—and deeply troubling, writes Paul Krugman. "The GOP has been taken over by the people it used to exploit," says the New York Times columnist, in an unprecedented shift that could leave the country "effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster."

For decades, says Krugman, the economic elites that ran the GOP courted the "irrational right" during elections—but ignored the fringe's demands in favor of their own economic agenda when it came to actually governing. The tables turned with the 2008 election: People like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck now hold real power, and if their GOP makes gains in the midterm elections, Krugman sees things getting "very bad for America."