Two Signs of Hope

Two readers wrote Andrew Sullivan with indictments of the current Republican party.

First there was this:

The opportunity to have prospered through hard work and discipline has been destroyed by the party who claims to be the standard bearer for those very attributes.

and then this:
...my party changed.

Where once was a belief in the power of the individual, came a heavy, overbearing government that dared to challenge how people should live their lives...
Where once I viewed the party as one who ended wars and focused on balanced budgets and living the American dream, there was now one that started one and leveraged our dreams with debt...
And then came the loss of privacy. Where once there was the beiief in live and let live, there was now a strange curiosity on the part of the government, to peer into the most private parts of our lives...
Where once was a party with a rather sunny disposition came one that was dark, glowering and saw the future as a threat