My Hero

Charlie Pierce is pretty amazing, talking about the GOP problem.

If you want to know where the abandoned wrath is going to focus in the next election, this is the issue -- and there's nothing Marco Rubio can do to stop it, in case you were wondering. It is now past cliche to note that the Republican party, and the conservative movement that gives it most of its money and all of its intellectual energy, is presently reaping what it sowed, that the chickens have returned clamorously to the roost, and that crows doth sit upon the capitol. However, for that dynamic to have a material focus on the 2014 midterms, it needs a focus. Now, you might think that would be guns, but the party and most of its elected members are on roughly the same page as the NRA as nearly as I can tell. However, the Republicans have looked at the demographics of the last election and they have made a concerted -- and very public -- effort to reform themselves on this issue because they would rather not become the Whigs of the 21st Century. As is obvious from the highlighted excerpt above, guns have their salience as an intraparty issue only when they can be connected to the issue of illegal immigration, not the other way around. In this formulation, you will note, the right to bear arms is yet another "free government benefit" that the "illiterate invaders" want.

Just fucking brilliant is all that is.