The term I use most of the time, in describing much of the GOP and the Tea Partying crowd is “reactionary right”.

The term “reactionary” itself can be ambiguous out of context. We all “react” to the stimuli in our environment - all living things do.

However, in the context of politics, especially in a nation with political parties, campaigns, elections, and entrenched institutions, “reactionary right” I use to describe the essential views of those who are rejecting recent changes in their society, which they see as an affront to them, and as a group devise goals to return to an earlier era.

“Revanchist” is accurate too, but it implies “taking back”, which indeed holds true of much of the Tea Partying crowd.

The policy centers of the GOP are strongly tilted towards idolizing previous eras, of returning somehow to an older order of things.

While the Democratic party is pretty much controlled by entropy, it does have pocket of thinkers who are more actively engaged in finding ideas for our own times and for the near and far futures that are not just business as usual. But, as the link I posted earlier about new San Diego mayor Bob Filner illuminated, there is plenty of blame to go around, for our national political ineptness.