Yesterday, Mopshell posted the most valuable diary I have seen in 9 years of reading Daily Kos. Go read it now:
Simple and powerful math: She listed the numbers of House Republicans who identify as members of three Tea Party style factions: Tea Party Caucus, Freedom Caucus, and Liberty Caucus. There are 81 Republicans who belong to at least one of those groups.
In other words, nearly one-third of the 247 House Republicans has acknowledged affiliation with a Tea Party faction.
Not the 40 Freedom Caucus members we hear in the press in connection with the Speaker fight. Although 40 is a big enough number, to be sure.
A one-third/two-thirds split means that the House GOP isn’t dealing with a large but marginal faction of radical right wingers. It means there is contention for formal power right now between two fairly sizable blocs within the House—and by extension, a fight to define the nature of the Republican Party.
It means the radical right Tea Party bloc in the House is larger than is being reported in the mainstream press—hiding in plain sight, until Mopshell’s work exposed the true magnitude of the issue.
American governance has gone from a 2-party system to a 3-party clusterfuck.
More on the GOP Civil War, below the fold.