From Dana Milbank's May 15 Washington Post column:

Future historians tracing the crackup of the Republican Party may well look to May 8, 2010, as an inflection point.

[...]

I was pondering this mystery while on the elliptical machine this week and watching Glenn Beck (I find he increases my heart rate), when I heard him inform his viewers that “they” -- President Obama and friends -- “are creating a global governance structure.”

“Social and ecological justice and all of this bullcrap,” Beck told his viewers, “is man's work for a global government.” Beck -- who is second in popularity only to Sarah Palin among the type of Tea Party activists who hijacked the Maine GOP -- tossed out phrases such as “global standards” and “global bank tax” -- all part of a conspiracy by the “global government people.” He further provided the news that “Jesus doesn't want a cap-and-trade system.”

Not once did Beck refer to the big news events of the day, such as Afghan President Hamid Karzai's visit to the White House or the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It was as if he had created a parallel universe for his 2-million-plus viewers. Similarly, on Monday, when Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, Beck omitted that news in favor of a fanciful administration attempt to restore the broadcast Fairness Doctrine. On Tuesday, USA Today had the headline “Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950” (the nonpartisan Tax Foundation put it at 1959); Beck skipped that, instead saying he doesn't want changes to the Internet “at least until people aren't worshipping Satan, you know, in office.” (Beck maintained later that he really wasn't “saying that Obama was a Satan worshipper.”)

Beck justifiably credited his viewers for “what happened to Bob Bennett in Utah.” He warned: “People in Washington, you should be terrified.”

We should be terrified -- particularly the Republicans, whose party is turning into this One-World-Government, Obama-worships-Satan, Jesus-opposes-climate-bill mélange.