I don’t think the permanent GOP death spiral is 100% fait accompli, but it will most definitely continue if nobody on the principled, pro-democracy side of the party is willing to do something bold, stick their neck out, and show some actual fucking leadership.

If one side is led by vocal lunatics, and the other by cowardly tut-tutters who are either taking half-measures or just quietly hoping the situation improves without them having to take any substantial personal risk, then yes, of course the lunatics will win. By forfeit.

To cite just one example of a bold move (*appropriately* bold, given the stakes) that would instantly change the dynamics...

... @MittRomney, @LisaMurkowski, and maybe 1 other (Portman? Toomey?) could tell McConnell & McCarthy: “expel Greene, Boebert, etc., in the next 72 hours, or we will go indy, caucus wi/ Dems & vote for major voting reform (nuking filibuster if necessary) including PR+DC statehood”

Will they do that? No. But if they did, would it totally change the dynamics of the GOP’s internal debate, by upending the incentives for party leaders? Obviously. And they claim to care deeply about that debate. If they want to win it, they’ll have to do *something* like this.

They won’t win the GOP civil war with thoughts & prayers. The lunatics and insurrectionists are constantly making bold, cutthroat moves. The pro-sanity wing has to also be tactically cutthroat, and also vocally make their case, or they’re fucked. Voters gravitate to leadership.

Right now, the only people exercising *leadership* are the lunatics, crackpots and traitors.

Even those who have done individual acts of conscience, like Cheney and Romney, are in a defensive crouch, or gazing horror-struck like Théoden when he first beheld the Pelennor Fields.

Romney, Cheney, etc., need to get to that moment where Théoden is like “fuck it,” and then rides straight into the horde crying “DEATH!!!!”

They won’t win back the GOP’s soul with an occasional burst of personal courage followed by long stretches of meekness. They have to LEAD.

If this is to be the sane GOP’s end, let them make such an end as to be worthy of remembering.