Read the full article for the details of how right has run out of gas. Not that the left is any better. If the fiscal cliff crap is any indication, we, the people are, for want of a better word, fucked.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and as utopianism died out on the left, it found a new home to the right of center. The last generation in the U.S. has seen three forms of demented right-wing utopianism: religious, military and economic.

The religious utopianism was that of the Protestant religious right, which grew in influence in the 1980s and peaked in the 1990s. […] But the project of remaking a modern, diverse, continental nation on the basis of a book was equally insane, whether the holy book was Marx’s Kapital or the Bible. The religious right faded as a force by the early 21st century, largely because of the growing secularization of younger Americans.

The next wave of utopianism was military. [..] When democratic revolutions ultimately did come to the Arab world, they were brought about by citizen revolts, not by American invaders and occupiers.

As the neoconservative utopia faded, it was followed in turn by the libertarian utopia. […] To judge by the elections of 2012, in which more Americans cast votes for Democrats for the gerrymandered House as well as in Senate and presidential elections, the public has turned against free market utopians like Paul Ryan, who want to replace social insurance with vouchers and cut taxes further on the rich.

What will succeed the failed utopias of the religious right, the neoconservative right and the libertarian right?