Will the Christofascist/Tea Party Torpedo GOP Rule?

While the Republicans shamelessly prostituted themselves to the Christofascists/Tea Party to win the Senate by playing on anti-gay animus, open racism and, of course the selfish greed that motivates the "godly folk," come January, the same crowd of knuckle dragging extremists in the party base may rile the GOP's effort to demonstrate that it can actually govern.   While sane Republicans - admitted a relative term nowadays - seem to grasp that (i) they don't have a carte blanc mandate and (ii) that in the run up to 2016 it's important to actually accomplish something, no such rationality motivates the ugly elements of the base.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the potential trouble brewing thanks to the lunacy of the "conservatives" - a euphemism for the religious extremists and white supremacist of the party base.  Here are excerpts:

As most Republicans were taking a victory lap the morning after the elections, a group of conservatives huddled anxiously in a conference room not far from Capitol Hill and agreed that now is the time for confrontation, not compromise and conciliation.

Despite Republicans’ ascension to Senate control and an expanded House majority, many conservatives from the party’s activist wing fear that congressional leaders are already being too timid with President Obama.

They do not want to hear that government shutdowns are off the table or that repealing the Affordable Care Act is impossible — two things Republican leaders have said in recent days.

“If the new Republican leadership in the Senate is only talking about what they can’t do, that’s going to be very demoralizing,” said Thomas J. Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group that convenes a regular gathering called Groundswell. Any sense of triumph at its meeting last week was fleeting.

[W]hen the new Congress convenes in January, the Republican leaders who will take the reins will be mainly in the mold of conservatives who have tried to keep the Tea Party in check.  But they have not crushed the movement’s spirit.

As Republicans on Capitol Hill transition from being the opposition party to being one that has to show it can govern, a powerful tension is emerging: how to move forward with an agenda that challenges the president without self-destructing.

Whether the party can reconcile more demands of its base with the will of its leadership could determine how enduring the Republican Senate majority will be. The crop of senators up for re-election in 2016 includes those elected in the first Tea Party wave of 2010. And in a sign of what is at stake, even some of them are sounding notes of compromise and caution that would have been unthinkable at the height of the right’s resurgence.

“I understand the frustrations of the conservative base; I am one of them,” said Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, one of the original class of Tea Party-inspired senators. “I also recognize reality.”

“We’re not going to pass the entire conservative agenda tomorrow. We can certainly lay it out,” Mr. Johnson added. “Let’s start with the things we can pass. Doesn’t that make more sense?”

[O]ther lawmakers popular with the Tea Party base are saying the fight is on.  

Some Republican senators rejected that outright. “There are intelligent things to do, and there are some not-so-intelligent things to do,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah. “And one of the first things we should do is find some areas of common ground with our Democrat friends.”

Tea Party conservatives, many of whom argue that the government shutdown last year was a sound strategy, said they were baffled by remarks after the election by Mr. McConnell that the Senate under his control would prioritize policies that Republicans knew Democrats would also support.   Many also fumed when Mr. McConnell stated the obvious: Republicans do not have the votes to repeal the Affordable Care Act because they cannot override a presidential veto on their own.

“That would cause a civil war inside the Republican Party,” said Richard Viguerie, a longtime conservative activist, referring to anything the party’s base saw as a halfhearted attempt at repeal. “There’s almost zero trust between the base and the Republican leaders.”

No one did more to demoralize Tea Party candidates and conservative agitators than Mr. McConnell, who vowed to “crush” every Republican primary challenger. (He did; none defeated an incumbent senator.) He also blacklisted Republicans who worked with groups supporting insurgents.

As I have said many times, the GOP establishment created a Frankenstein monster when the Christofascists were welcomed into the party and allowed to hijack much of the grass roots.  They are out of touch with objective reality  and in many instances outright insane.  Watching to see whether they leadership can control them will make for great spectator sport and may determine whether the party moves towards self-destruction.