Rove as Captain Smith on the bridge of GOP "Titanic"

The coming collision now shaping up between the forces of reaction and those of progression is well explained in the Atlantic article, "Why Democrats Are Aching to Run Against Jeb Bush." If you believe they are, then Rove's recent efforts to intimidate Hillary out of the race seem all the more pathetic and desperate.

Given the probably correct assumption that Republicans will romp over Democrats later this year in what will be a very low turnout midterm election, the idea that Democrats will in turn romp over Jeb Bush in 2016 might seem ridiculous to anyone who was in a coma from 2000 to 2009, but obvious to everyone else.

Republicans can never succeed in framing the 2016 election as a referendum on Obama by nominating Jeb Bush.  As the article correctly explains:

"[in a recent speech] Clinton noted that “Canadian middle-class incomes are now higher than in the United States. They are working fewer hours for more pay than Americans are, enjoying a stronger safety net, living longer on average, and facing less income inequality.” How long until Republicans accuse her of considering the United States inferior to our northern neighbor?

But the most important takeaway from Hillary’s speech was that she’s aching to run against Jeb Bush. Clinton is not a great inspirational speaker. She’s at her best arguing a case. And the most effective part of her speech Friday was her case for why [Bill] Clinton-administration policies—an expanded earned-income tax credit, a higher minimum wage, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program—helped poor and middle-class Americans get ahead, while the Bush administration policies that followed—tax breaks for the rich, unfunded wars—made their struggles harder.

If Republicans are smart, they’ll do everything in their power to avoid this debate."

The truth of the proposition that Bill Clinton's economic policies ultimately helped middle class Americans (remember he signed the Republican-written Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act that handed the financial system over to predatory speculators) is clearly debatable, but JEB! 2016 will never rebut the other side of Hillary's implied argument:   George W. Bush's administration was far worse.

The Republican element of the donor plutocracy, far from trying to steer clear of such a disaster, seems to be charting a course straight at it.  This coming election is shaping up to be a titanic and transparent clash between the "progressive" plutocracy of George Soros and Silicon Valley, exemplified by Clinton, and the "reactionary" plutocracy of the Kochs, Adelson, etc. perfectly exemplified in the figure of a Bush crown prince.

Clinton will be able, facing another Bush, to frame the election as a choice between Bill Clinton era illusory prosperity, and George W. Bush's crackup of the speculator bubble, not a choice between Obama and the libertarian rhetoric about free markets, small government, faith in a Calvinist "self help" God, etc. - any of the false talking points the GOP establishment always trot out to defend their unvarnished system of cartel economics and oligarchy.

It is a rhetorical, if not substantive, battle the reactionaries will lose.