That fat slob of a New Jersey governor has the chattering classes talking about the brewing fight between “libertarians” and “conservatives” over the direction of the GOP.  Here’s a representative article on it. The author does a fair job of labeling one side the establishment and the other insurgents. Calling the GOP conservative is not just a factual error, it accepts the establishment view of the world which is inaccurate and self-serving. America’s ruling elites range from fanatically left-wing to mildly liberal. The fanatics call the mildly liberal “conservative” and “right-wing.” The mildly liberal call the other guys liberal and progressive, when they dare stand up for themselves in public.

The GOP’s role in this is as a rubber stamp for the Democrats. The Democrats are run by the fanatics. They chased off their mildly liberal members in the 1990′s. The GOP is run by the mildly liberal, but have a sizable number of non-liberals of various stripes. For as long as I’ve been alive, the myth is that the non-liberals run the GOP, but that was always nonsense. At best they contribute some color to an otherwise drab party of establishment career men. In every fight, the establishment types surrender to the fanatics to the great disappointment of the non-liberals. Now, it appears the non-liberals are starting to wake up and target the surrender wing of the GOP. As Michael Walsh noted on NRO, it is a good time to have the fight.

My own view is the status quo is only brought down through crisis and catastrophe. That’s why every epoch is book-ended by violent conflicts. The Civil War ended the colonial period, ushering in the Industrial Age.  The riots of the late sixties and stagnation of the 1970′s ended the post-war period and ushered in the free money era. Revolutions throughout the Soviet Bloc ended the communist era, just as it started it. If the GOP is going to become something other than the Stupid Party, it will be a bloody mess before it emerges. The old guard will not leave quietly. Their friends in the establishment will move heaven and earth to support their collaborators.

My bet is the old guard wins for now. Until the money runs out, nothing will change.