OK, let's...

"In fact, they conserve nothing. We who speak out and organize and struggle for peace and freedom—we are the conservatives, and the liberals. The so-called conservatives and “centrists”—what should be call them? Royalists, because they believe in the absolute authority of a king disguised as a president? Fascists, because they seek corporate domination in all areas of social life? For now, let’s just call them: Nihilists."

Or, if you will, destructionists, because their goal is the destruction of Constitutional governance.

Chris Dashiell's typically excellent post points out the reason that there's simply no reason for the continued existence of the Republican Party. Although the new Democratic Congressional majorities aren't as dependent on an influx of conservative Ds as some would have you believe, there's no question that the Democratic Party provides plenty of room for the kind of conservatism that's legitimate in the American context.

Put in terms that any NASCAR dad might understand, progressives are the accelerator and conservatives are the brakes. Both are needed to effectively keep the government on the track, but the track itself, defined by the Constitution, is liberal governance. 'Movement' conservatism is a political vehicle that can't pass the ideological tech inspection because it is designed to drive off the track. It's un-American at its core. As Paul Krugman (liberated by Digby) recently noted…

Why do I want to see movement conservatism crushed? Partly because the movement is fundamentally undemocratic; its leaders don’t accept the legitimacy of opposition.

The Republican Party has been captured by forces that are fundamentally undemocratic and essentially un-American. True conservatism, that which, as Dashiell writes, is "disposed to preserving existing conditions, institutions, etc., agreeing with gradual rather than abrupt change, having the power or tendency to conserve, preservative," is well, and appropriately, represented within Democratic ranks. It's absent in the radicalism of contemporary Republicanism. Whatever legitimate impulses or purposes may have been in the minds of the founders of the Republican Party, one thing is abundantly clear today...