The Republican Party couldn’t have done more to discredit itself from 2000-2008 if it had tried. Two wars lost, an economy crushed, a surplus squandered and an entire city drowned, and yet nothing really changed at the core of the country’s politics. The nation elected a Yankee African-American named Hussein, replete with a professorial and community organizing background. And still nothing changed: Barack Obama might as well have been playing out Bill Clinton’s 3rd term. The Republicans stormed back into office with one of the biggest midterm landslides in history. No change. Americans started occupying the streets in protest of record income inequality. Still nothing. And then Republicans nominated Gordon Gekko himself as their candidate for President, and still the Presidency hangs on the edge of a knife so sharp we might as well be living back in days of hanging chad recounts.