At his blog at the NY Times, Dr. Krugman steps back for a moment to look at the bigger picture.
Right now, if inherent importance were all that mattered, I wouldn’t be writing about the effects of sprawl, or the Fed succession, or even, probably, about China’s brick-wall problem. I would instead be writing all the time about the looming chaos in U.S. governance.
It's a short blog post, but one that bears looking at, as Krugman peers into the abyss and notes that interesting times lie ahead. It has become readily apparent to anyone with half a brain that the Republican Party has gone completely off the rails, jumped the shark, and every other cliche you can think of describing F***-all insanity. What this means for the task of governing the country and the American Experiment is not pleasant to contemplate, or even admit.
But it's where we are. As Dr. Krugman observes:
The trouble is that it’s hard to give this issue anything like the amount of coverage it deserves on substantive grounds without repeating oneself. So I do try to mix it up. But neither you nor I should forget that the madness of the GOP is the central issue of our time.
emphasis added
Time to read this once more... I fear Krugman is an optimist.