The GOP is going to destroy itself. I hoped for but did not expect to see any humility in defeat. McConnell jumped right back up and insisted he was going to continue jamming up the Senate. I have no doubt Boehner, if re-elected as Speaker, is going to continue to let the rug rats run wild.

The problem with the GOP is their 11th Commandment. "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." It is interestingly enough a Reagan-era development which allowed the GOP to unite rival factions and present a consistent profile to their opposition, but the problem with marching in lock-step (as the Nazis might tell you) is when you can't criticize your own, you can't fix problems.

The 11th Commandment, in my mind, is directly responsible for problems like Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Tom DeLay, Iran-Contra, Michael Brown, the Katrina disaster, the Iraq War, and so on.

They can't purge hypocrites or criminals because no matter how despicable a scumbag crook they get to run for office, he's "better than a Democrat."

They can't put a stop to bad, reckless ideas because Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner.

They can't get rid of ineffective fuckwits because No Republican Is Ever Wrong.

And that just seems to be an open, engraved on brass invitation to nutjobs and extremists to run away with the party's identity. For decades now, no Republican can speak against Rush Limbaugh no matter how unpopular he really is, no matter how stupid he sounds, no matter how much of a liar or a fraud or a crook he is increasingly revealed to be, because Limbaugh is the biggest, loudest bully in the GOP and anyone who crosses him is politically dead meat. And, he has nobody to put a check on him, nobody he answers to (because he is not an elected politician). Similar problem with Grover Norquist.

Until the GOP learns humility (which they never will) they're going to keep doing this to themselves. They're not going to back off the Southern Strategy, they're not going to stop insulting Latinos and gays and women, they're not going to stop putting knuckle-dragging animals up for election, and as the demographics of the US rapidly shift, they're going to get marginalized to the South, then to oblivion.

The vacuum of that power is going to open up on the left, the Democrats will become the "conservative" party (they already are, something most liberals don't get, and no Republican has a chance of understanding) and the GOP will blow away like so much fartgas.