In a recent conversation with Salon, journalist Katherine Stewart expressed her view that the Republican Party “has largely abandoned conservatism and has now refashioned itself as a revolutionary party":

It’s not interested in preserving key American institutions. A segment of the party doesn’t even care about governing. ... The extreme faction of the Republican Party is aiming to blow up the system and take control of whatever remains….

We need to stop calling the Republican Party’s dominant faction “conservative.” The real conservatives, right now, are the incrementalists on the center-left, people who think that we should try to preserve, build on and improve our key democratic institutions and international alliances. Leaders of the New Right and related movements are not remotely conservative. I would say they are revolutionaries without a rational or coherent purpose, or reactionary nihilists.

From Salon.com Chauncey Devega