Krugman, the new Cassandra

This is an excellent prognostication. Krugman channels Cassandra through John Quiggin:

After The Fall

John Quiggin writes:

I’ve been too absorbed by my book projects and by Australian politics (of which more soon) to pay a lot of attention to the forthcoming US elections, but it seems to be widely projected that the Republicans could regain control of the House of Representatives. What surprises me is that no-one has drawn the obvious inference as to what will follow, namely a shutdown of the US government.

It seems obvious to me that a shutdown will happen – the Republicans of today are both more extreme and more disciplined than last time they were in a position to shut down the government, and they did it then. And they hate Obama at least as much now as they hated Clinton in 1995 …

I’ve been thinking the same thing. Also, expect many, many fake scandals; we’ll be having hearings over accusations of corruption on the part of Michelle Obama’s hairdresser, janitors at the Treasury, and Larry Summers’s doctor’s dog. If you don’t believe me, you weren’t paying attention during the Clinton years; remember, we had months of hearings over claims that something was fishy in the White House travel office (nothing was).

And if anyone remotely connected to the administration should die — oh, boy.

What I can't understand is why an electorate would put the crazies who destroyed the economy back in charge of the economy. Are Americans suicidal? Do they have so much self-hate that they wish to go up in a conflagration of political self-destruction? Are they so blind as to not understand how hypocritical and fanatical the Republican party has become?