I enjoy reading The Onion, even more so when those it lampoons don’t get the joke. But while satire is meant to be amusing, it quite often reflects a more serious state of affairs. A recent Onion post on a captive breeding program designed to save the critically endangered moderate Republican had me laughing, before it had me thinking.

Because, actually... they’re right - the Republican Party truly is dying. For all intents and purposes, it’s already dead, the only impression of life being the lurching about of animated zombies eating their own brains, leaving the traditional mainstream moderate Republican conservative embarrassed and frustrated. The traditional mainstream moderate conservatives aren’t even in reality Republicans any longer, as the party itself has deteriorated from the rot of tea party fanaticism, and Koch Brother corruption, and the constant barrage Fox propaganda posing as journalism, and hate-filled blustering talk shows spewing hydrophobic nonsense, and the jaw-droppingly atrocious bunch of incompetent idiots posing as GOP Presidential candidates. All that is left of a once a respectable political party is the name “Republican” for nostalgic conservatives to cling to.

Which is so not good for our country. If disaffected Republicans ever managed to purge themselves of the zombies and the tea partiers and the Limbaughs and Fox and regrouped as something else, much like New Labour rebranded itself in the UK (although New Labour turned out to be just Tory Lite rather than any sort of improved Labour party), Democrats might finally have genuine opponents again - which would be both a bit scary and a bit hopeful. A nation runs best when there's an honorable opposition to keep the ruling party honest, regardless of what party is in power. An honorable opposition represents a very large proportion of the nation’s citizenship, and gives that citizenship a strong voice. An honorable opposition works harder at designing and proposing alternative ideas in the hope that the good they can do will garner them enough votes next go-round at the polls. I’d like to see an honorable opposition again.

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