Frustration is brewing within the GOP base.  Clearly divided on the so-called 'social issues', setting religious conservatives apart from the Schwarzenegger moderate wing of the party, many Republicans are demanding that these internal issues be set straight.

As written in Sunday's Politico, the far-right is on the verge of taking over:

Many political scientists might choose the lazy road and compare this movement on the right to that which started on the left in late-2002.  So eventually these conservatives are going to form a grassroots movement that will bring the Republican back to power, right?  Actually, from a demographic standpoint, the people organizing these anti-tax rallies and fighting same-sex marriage are much older than those who formed our grassroots movement on the left.  We are talking about a dying breed of conservatives whose social views run contrary to more people here in the 21st century.  We are a much more tolerant country than we were 40 years ago.  We elected our first black president.  It's easier today for homosexual men and women to be open about their orientation.  We support embryonic stem cell research.  Clearly, with each passing year, there are less and less people within the far-right conservative movement to counter-balance this underlying trend towards a more progressive, open society.

If conservatives have a strong card to play, it's the tax and debt subject.  But every time they try their luck on social issues, with each passing year they alienate their party from the electoral majority

My apologies in advance for sounding blunt, ideological and even a few days behind in the news.  As an observer of the Tea Party protests throughout the country, which drew around 250,000 conservatives, I can't help but shake my head and laugh.  Holding up signs opposing taxes and the national debt, everything seemed to me like one big contradiction.  Where do you think we get the revenue to pay down the debt?  Where were those wing-nuts during the previous administration when more than $1 trillion was spent on a war that Bush for some time hid from his federal budget total? 

Many of the protesters feared the return of fascism.  Actually, from an economic standpoint, one 20th century dictator referred to fascism as the merger between corporate and government power.  So where were these tea parties during the Bush-DeLay era when the Republican lobbying machine was out of control, bridging the private sector with various wings of the executive and legislative branches?  Environmental and trade agreements written by lobbyists that used to be the very polluters and monopolistic giants that these laws were supposed to keep in check.

I'll tell you about fascism.  On a social level, fascism is on the rise when certain right-wing leaders suspend habeas corpus, set up undisclosed detention camps and using the war on terrorism to spy on groups inside the US that pose no harm to the country.  Where were the tea parties then?  Still waiting for an answer.

If he was, he wouldn't be addressing this issue at all.  The Republicans are in dire need of a hot-button wedge issue for the 2010 midterm elections.  With Obama's new immigration proposal, the GOP may have all the ammo they need:

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,� said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Not quite the Karl Rove thing to do; nor is it the typical spineless Democratic thing to do.

As he always does, Stephen Colbert this week exposed the disingenuous, right-wing jingoism behind the new FOX News host.  This is a must watch!