So....Does the United States now have a third political party?

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

GOP Rep 'Not Sure' If His Tea Party Colleagues Are Actually Republican

As Republicans came to terms with Wednesday's news of a Senate deal to reopen the government and avoid a debt default, one member of the GOP questioned whether his tea party colleagues were actually on the same side.

In an interview with National Journal, Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) leveled about the 16-day shutdown experience within GOP quarters.

"There are members with a different agenda," Boustany said. "And I'm not sure they're Republicans and I'm not sure they're conservative."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/16/charles-boustany-tea-party_n_4111222.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

[onehandle]

1. I wish. The teahadist sheep need to realize that the GOP is using them.

Go Full On Third Party.

Please proceed...

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

2. I'm tempted to send them a contribution

But here's my fear. What happens if the next GOP Speaker (assuming we don't win back the House in 2014) is some jihadist conservative? At the end of the day - almost literally - Boehner did allow a vote on the bi-partisan Senate plan; a Tea Party Speaker would have done....what? As much as I'm enjoying the Republican implosion, I'm a little frightened at what might take its place.

[Azathoth]

3. They're Republican. It's just that their loyalty is to talk radio and not Wall Street n/t

[mysuzuki2]

4. The repubs achieved great success in the 80s when the Big Money crowd figured out they could

get the support of the evangelical, homophobic, racist, anti-woman, anti-science groups by embracing, or pretending to embrace, their ideas. This gave them a great number of willing supporters and worker-bees to vote their people into power. What we have seen here recently, perhaps, is the splitting of this coalition. The big money folks realized during the shutdown that crashing the economy was not to their benefit. The teabagging crowd has begun, I think, to realize that they have been used. This will certainly not turn them into liberals or democrats but hopefully may send them back to their nasty little hidey holes where they used to reside. We'll all be the better for it.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

7. But will they go back?

When I was a kid, there was the John Birch Society. They would show up with a booth at the county fair and hand out leaflets (my favorite was the one accusing the Queen of England of being a secret communist), and that was pretty much the end of it. Given the nature of the internet, these lunatics don't have to wait for the county fair and they can produce a lot more than mimeographed sheets of paper.

They're now connected to each other, and short of unhooking their internet access, those connections aren't going away.

[mysuzuki2]

8. Don't know. I think these 2 groups have become dissallusioned with each other quite a bit.

Third party? Back in the woodwork of county fairs and tables in front of post offices? Who knows? But I think it is only going to weaken the repub party. BTW, I gather you are from Milwaukee (I am perceptive that way.) I live on the far NW side. It would be fun to have a Milw area DU meet up some time.

[bemildred]

5. No, back to two.

The Tea Party will be destroyed, and the Democratic Party will help the rump of the Republicans do it.

[apnu]

6. We have lots of parties. Libertarian, Constitution, Green...

None of them are viable right now.

I have this theory that the tea baggers are actually insurgents from the Libertarian party trying to take over the Republican party so they don't have to do all the hard work of building a brand, infrastructure and, you know, win elections to increase influence.