E.J. Dionne, Jr. of the WAPO opines about the shift in America, where the Regan era - i.e. the Republican Parties emergence was ushered in by the under 30 crowd, and last month, the under 30 crowd cast their lot with the Democratic Party. With the Bush Administration’s continued insistence on staying the course, it is going to be a brutal 2 decades for the withering and toothless Republican Party.

When a nation alters its philosophical direction and changes its assumptions, there is no press release to announce the shift, no news conference where The People declare that they have decided to move down a different path.

Yet 2006 is looking more and more like one of history’s hinge years, a moment when old ideas are cast aside, new leaders emerge and old leaders decide to speak in new ways. The changes in politics and culture are visible in the many sudden and outright reversals of the conventional wisdom.