Required Reading

Damn fine think-piece from Tom Dougherty on the “echo chamber” of intra-GOP warfare:

The average Republican, regardless of persuasion – moderate, moderate-conservative, conservative or ultra-conservative – is no longer willing to accept any viewpoint that is outside their own. If this attitude persists through 2016, mark my words, the GOP will suffer a stinging defeat of epic proportions.

If an out-of-control liberal agenda is what you want, then keep screaming into your own little echo chamber, and your wish will be the Democrats command in two years. But if a conservative and realistic program appeals to you, then become part of the solution and step toward, not away, from those with whom you do not see eye-to-eye.

Will everybody get everything they want? Of course not, but there is not now, nor has there ever been, a political utopia. Can every Republican, and Independent, get most of what they crave? They absolutely can, but only if the party makes a dramatic shift in approachability, and adopts a new willingness to compromise. Yes, compromise; without it we are doomed to failure.

The Tea Party enjoyed some great wins in 2010 and 2012, and this year marked something of a resurgence for the establishment GOP. But the point of party politics is to put that crap behind you after the primary, and line up behind the nominee — who was the choice of the voting majority of your fellow Republicans (or Democrats).

A RINO can be dragged, kicking and screaming if necessary, to vote for a good bill. Harry Reid on the other hand is an immovable object — of pure evil.

And in any case, Republicans will have an impossible case to make in 2016, that they can set the country’s affairs back in order, if they can’t even manage their party.