I’d like to add something to Noam Scheiber’s analysis of recent Tea Party behavior. Mr. Scheiber interprets their collapse on the debt ceiling and their willingness to allow a Farm Bill to pass, as well as some other signs of softening, as indications that the Tea Party is less irrational than delusional. Their brain infection is bacterial, not viral, and can be treated with the right mix of confrontation. It’s not that they are indifferent to public opinion, they just have to be forcibly disabused of the notion that the public agrees with them.
There’s something to this, but I think the real explanation lies elsewhere. I think John Boehner and other Establishment mouthpieces have finally found a winning argument that is persuasive with the mouth-breathers. They think that their house majority is safe, and they’ve convinced themselves that they can win control of the Senate if they can just refrain from shooting themselves in the foot. They have been able to take positive polling numbers to the wingnut faction of the party and argue convincingly that they are on a glide path to victory in the midterms, and the idea is that they will win if they can just avoid rocking the boat too much.
That means that there can be no more government shutdowns or downgrading of the country’s credit rating. They don’t have to pass immigration reform. They don’t have to extend unemployment insurance. They really don’t have to do anything other than keep the government open and they will be rewarded by the public despite their role in making the government utterly dysfunctional. In fact, the dysfunction of government is the best argument for Republican governance, because the Democrats insist on behaving as if the government can do things effectively.
So, elected Tea Partiers (as opposed to the unelected kind) are willing to sit back and wait for their reward, and then they can really attack this president and his health care law.
As we saw after the 2010 midterms, even if the Republicans are correct about their prospects in November, it means nothing for their prospects in the next presidential election. In fact, I’d argue that the worst thing that can happen for the next Republican presidential nominee is for the Republicans to have a good election night next November. When the whole country votes, they show a clear preference for the Democrats. The sharper the contrast, the easier it is for the country to choose. Offer them a choice between Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman, and they might become indecisive. But offer them a choice between Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz and the results will be catastrophic for the GOP.
In any case, the Republican Establishment has convinced the party base that they can do best by sitting pat. By sitting pat, they can prove that the government is horrible and should not be trusted to solve any problem, and then will be put in charge to prove that theory beyond any doubt. Again.
