Matt Taibbi:

This schism [between Tea Partiers and the GOP establishment] could be a disaster for Republicans (because it will further alienate the rank-and-file, middle-and-working-class voters from the party establishment, which will now be bashed from the outside by [soon-to-be-ex-Sen. Jim] DeMint and the Tea Party), or it could actually be a good thing for the Republicans’ future prospects (there’s a way to look at [DeMint’s resignation and the removal of four Tea Party-aligned Republicans from committee assignments earlier this week] as a long-overdue purge of the party’s moron faction).

Or it could all be irrelevant. Remember, the Democrats were facing a similarly bitter split not too long ago, when their party’s mainstream unforgivably backed Bush’s idiotic Iraq invasion and then saddled us with a war-waffling presidential candidate in John Kerry. And just like the Republicans after Romney, the Democrats after the Kerry loss felt hopeless, depressed and self-hating – you heard a lot of “Screw it, I’m moving to Iceland” talk. Four years later, the party sold the identical Kerry policy package in an exciting new Obama wrapper, and suddenly people were partying in the streets. You just never know how these things will turn out.