Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Jon Chait has a good post today on a subject that’s been in the back of my mind too: what lessons are Republicans taking from the Tea Party takeover of the GOP? As he points out, so far it’s been a disaster. Pat Toomey’s primary challenge of Arlen Specter brought us healthcare reform, Sharron Angle’s victory in Nevada is likely to let Harry Reid keep his seat, and Tea Party darlings Rand Paul (in Kentucky) and Marco Rubio (in Florida) have turned safe seats into nailbiters. And of course there was Doug Hoffman’s insurgency last year in New York’s 23rd district, which accomplished nothing except to split the conservative vote and hand the seat to a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War:

This is four Senate seats put at serious risk by running right-wing primary challenges, plus one enormous liberal domestic policy accomplishment….I have seen no recriminations whatsoever in hindsight. And yet it seems perfectly clear that the effect of these challenges has been a disaster from the conservative perspective.

….Obviously the conservative movement is intoxicated with hubris right now. Part of this hubris is their belief that the American people are truly and deeply on their side and that the last two elections were either a fluke or the product of a GOP that was too centrist. It’s a tactical radicalism, a belief that ideological purity carries no electoral cost whatsoever.

The usual way this stuff works is that a party that overreaches gets pummeled at the polls and then grudgingly moves to the center in order to win back votes. Think Republicans after Goldwater, Democrats after Reagan, and Britain’s Labor Party after Thatcher. The main question is, how long does it take?

Republicans have now gotten pummeled for two elections in a row. That’s not enough. Three in a row might do it, but unfortunately for the GOP, they’re going to win big this year no matter what. Even if Republicans do worse than expected — say, a 20-seat pickup in the House and three or four in the Senate — that’s plenty big enough for them to think of it as a resounding public endorsement. In fact, it might be the worst of all possible worlds for them: big enough to keep everyone motivated, but small enough to keep them in the minority, where they can continue to spout the most extreme Tea Party rhetoric with no need to back it up. It’s the ideal combination to keep them deluded into thinking that if they just follow the one true path a little more diligently, victory will be theirs.

I haven’t been able to figure out how this ends. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see like everyone else. One scenario is that they pick up seats but stay in the minority for next decade or so, and that’s how long it takes for them to come to their senses. Another is that they win a congressional majority and then — what? It’s obvious they have no intention of taking a meat axe to spending, and equally obvious that they know how unpopular this would be no matter what the tea partiers say. Check out Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) on Meet the Press today for comically convincing evidence of this. But what happens then? Is there any point at which the tea partiers will finally figure out that Republicans are willing to talk endlessly about slashing the federal government but are never willing to actually do it?

Or is John Quiggin right? Would Republicans, against all odds, actually try to live up to their rhetoric and end up shutting down the government, as Newt Gingrich did in 1995? And if so, what happens then? Sarah Palin in 2012? Followed by a Goldwater-style election debacle? It’s hard to think of any way in which this ends up well for either the Republican Party or for the country.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate