EJ Dionne: It's our system on the cliff

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Let the Tea Party be the Tea Party

If history is any guide, they will obstruct with paranoid delusions
about the end of America and freedom and the economy and
stand firm on their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment

Meanwhile, back in reality, the economy is slowing recovering,
the Fed has made us awash in cash, people are spending the
the President has moved America in a positive direction

If the Tea Party Republicans manage to hijack their more moderate
brethren, then the entire Party will go over their own Cliff
like a bunch of lemmings.

Once the public sees what is happening, they will squeeze out a
few Tea Partyers in primaries, and by 2020 the redistricting will
edge toward the middle.

The Founding Fathers really did make a self-regulating political
mechanism that prevented radicals from seizing actual control
and gravitated toward the political middle. They feared "factions"
- the 18th century concept of parties, and institutionalized their
constraint.