When I was growing up, all my teachers and most of my professors had a reflexive hatred of the Republicans. No matter what the Republicans did, they refused to even considered supporting them. It was amazing to watch otherwise intelligent people switch off their brains. Republicans were racists (after supporting the Civil Rights Act), sexist (fair enough) evil monsters who just wanted to put us under their bootheel (apparently by shrinking government authority).

But when you dug down, you’d find one of the big reasons they really hated Republicans. Richard Nixon. He was the candidate who wouldn’t go away who eventually crushed their bright boy in 1972 and continued a war they hated. He was also a pathological liar who crippled the economy with wage and price controls and thought the President should have the authority to do whatever he wanted. It eventually got to the point where the very sight of him would infuriate people. Read the works of Hunter Thompson or even Dave Barry and you’ll find that intense deep hatred that no amount of time can really take away.

Well, Bush is now doing this all over again. Polls are showing that young people are switching to the Democrat side in droves. The President has been revealed as an incompetent, authoritarian hypocrite. He lust for power and vicious politicization of everything on Earth has made the very sight of him infurating to a generation of Americans. He hasn’t crippled the economy like Nixon did. But the string of disasters — none of which are his fault! — is long and ugly. Iraq, Katrina, the budget, prescription drugs, the justice department, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And his embracing of a radical religious agenda has made the GOP look stupid. Boortz is right. They are on the brink of permanent minority status.

The only hope of conservatives is that a conservative Democrat emerges to lead the nation. Someone like Bill Richardson out in New Mexico. He hasn’t got a chance once Hillary’s wolves set upon him. But he’s all we’ve got now.

Sigh. You have no idea how hard it is for a Child of Reagan to say this. But I am now a man without a party.