The Republican Party’s reliance on tea party support is like an addict’s dependence on a dangerous drug: It may feel good at first, but eventually it eats you alive.
No House majority leader had ever been ousted in a primary before Eric Cantor’s shocking defeat on Tuesday. Republicans who tell themselves it was Cantor’s own fault — he lost touch with his Virginia district, he tried to have it both ways on immigration, he came to be seen as part of the Washington establishment — are whistling past the graveyard.