I’ve said for a while that the GOP has been at war with the Tea Party, and that we have few options as a result. Here’s my update:
The GOP is using Romney and Paul to permanently defeat the Tea Party. The Romney campaign and the Paul campaign have apparently reached an accommodation which gains Paul and his kooks a seat at the convention, and which all but guarantees a primary win for Romney. Santorum’s continuing candidacy is icing on the cake, but I am confident he is not part of this deal.
The real threat of this is that the Paul deal is a long-term weapon. By perpetuating a Paulian heresy within the party, they discredit any internal opposition. It not only saps numbers from the actual conservative Tea Party, but it makes the remaining Tea Party look like the #Occupy morons of the Paul movement. It gives the GOP a portable demon, so that whenever they are criticized, they simply reach in their pockets and scold the demon to ward off evil spirits, such as the actual conservatives or media opprobrium.
Or something like that. I’m still trying to flesh out the mechanisms and metaphors. But this is bad.
Our betrayal is complete.
