Interesting longish post by David Atkins over at the Washington Monthly. Toward the conclusion:

Unwilling and unable to moderate their positions, the Republican base has assumed a pose of irredentist defiance, an insurgent war against perceived liberal orthodoxy in which the loudest, most aggressive warrior becomes their favorite son. It is this insurgent stance that informs their hardline views on guns: many of them see a day coming when their nativist, secessionist political insurgency may become an active military insurgency, and they intend to be armed to the teeth in the event that they deem it necessary. The GOP electorate isn’t choosing a potential president: they’re choosing a rebel leader. The Republican base doesn’t intend to go down compromising. They intend to go down fighting.

I think that, particularly if they fail to grasp the brass ring after another couple of presidential cycles, the bastards are going to try that in our lifetimes, and in a more coordinated fashion than our recent heroic freelancers have managed in churches and multiplexes.

The GOP really is in a kind of demographic trap, distantly akin to what the Israelis face, although the plucky Zionists are closer to, and will be obliged nakedly to implement outright apartheid sooner than, the Republicans. I venture to hope that following a promising beginning back in the 1850s, the party is approaching its ignoble end, except that the crazies aren't going away—Ashton, I believe, has observed that dumbth is a virtually inexhaustible national resource—and the banner of the successor party will likely stand for an even nastier set of "principles."

cordially,