And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

—Matthew 13:42

The wailing is now at a pitch audible only to dogs and the teeth are gnashed right down to the gum line, and it's only March. The roosts are so full of chickens that the chickens are starting to cannibalize each other just to have a place to perch. The conservative movement is trying to govern itself again and the Republican Party, which has in that movement its only animating force, is being ground up by the process. A furnace of fire would be a vacation cabin in the Rockies compared to a spot in the withering wrath of one Erick Erickson and his endless escadrille of up-armored tricycles.

We believe that the issue of Donald Trump is greater than an issue of party. It is an issue of morals and character that all Americans, not just those of us in the conservative movement, must confront. We call for a unity ticket that unites the Republican Party. If that unity ticket is unable to get 1,237 delegates prior to the convention, we recognize that it took Abraham Lincoln three ballots at the Republican convention in 1860 to become the party's nominee and if it is good enough for Lincoln, that process should be good enough for all the candidates without threats of riots.

(An aside: by the time he was finally nominated for president by the Republican Party, Lincoln had delivered his House Divided speech in the Illinois legislature and his even more iconic address at Cooper Union in New York. By any standard, the man already was a national figure of some considerable weight by the time the Republicans convened in May of 1860. Read both speeches again. You see a lot of Lincolns in the current crop of Republicans? Yeah, neither do I.)

This overstuffed declaration of high principles, promoted by a chap who once called a Supreme Court justice a "goat-fcking child molester," and co-signed by an odd lot of columnists, consultants, and burlesque public intellectuals brings to mind nothing more than an expression familiar to folks here at the shebeen: Who the fck is Erick Erickson when he's at home? What influence do these people truly believe they have? If their alternative is Tailgunner Ted Cruz, an oleaginous and friendless theocrat with a very serious political messiah complex, how dare they decide that He, Trump is outside the mainstream? If their alternative is not Cruz, then what in the hell do they think they're about, anyway?

The notion of a Third Way candidate in Cleveland is patently absurd. For one thing, the threat of a Trump uprising is not an idle one, especially if he shows up with north of 1000 delegates. Second, what makes them think that Cruz will get out of the way for, say, Paul Ryan or, worse, Willard Romney? Even if you accept the notion that He, Trump is not the perfect manifestation of the conservative prion disease afflicting the Republicans, and I don't for a moment accept that, you cannot deny that Cruz is an even more perfect product of the Party's madness. After all, he will show up with a boatload of votes fairly won over the previous seven months, a legitimate claim to be the party's second choice, and his profound belief that the Deity has marked him to lead this nation to Canaan. Who's going to tell him he's wrong? Quin Hillyer? And is there any doubt that both He, Trump and the Tailgunner are greasy enough to enter into an ad hoc alliance to blow the whole thing sky high if they don't get what they want? I never thought I'd say this but, on this point alone, N. Leroy Gingrich is absolutely right. His wolverine's sense of political opportunism remains as sharp as ever.

Here's what the old line Washington establishment doesn't get, there are only two candidates would could be nominated—one is Ted Cruz, the other is Donald Trump. The best way for Cruz to be the nominee, and he understands this, is to beat Trump in the primary, and he is working very hard to do this. Lets say Cruz... comes short. That doesn't mean there's going to be a third candidate. So the establishment gets to choose, do you want Ted Cruz who is an outsider? Or do you want Donald Trump who is an outsider? But there's not going to be a third candidate... One of these two outsiders is going to be nominated, and anybody who tried to sneak in at the last moment would find Trump and Cruz opposed to them, and they would simply be crushed. Those two guys are going to have over 80% of the delegates between them...

Predictably, Erickson got himself all chuffed again at how simple logic so disrespects and subverts his deepest feelings for the Republic.

I think Newt should be honest. The same polling that Donald Trump cites regularly to show how good he is doing, consistently shows he is the only Republican who can't beat Hillary Clinton. 19 or the last 20 polls have shows that without a third party, he loses to her in Ohio, Michigan, PA. Donald Trump cannot beat Hillary Clinton… Donald Trump has higher unfavorablities than Hillary Clinton, and as a political strategist, I know that when you go on the negative against Hillary, it is going to drive up your negatives more. And you've already got exit polls saying 40% of Republicans are ready to go elsewhere.

As a "political strategist," Erickson makes a reasonably good talk-show host. There is no path to Someone Else besides He, Trump and/or Tailgunner Ted Cruz that does not include the Republican Party eating its own liver for four days on national television. There is no path that is not lined by riot police or drenched in spittle. (By the way, if "going negative" against Hillary Rodham Clinton serves only to drive up your own negatives, then the Republicans can nominate anybody they want because whoever it is will be pretty seriously screwed anyway.) What's out there is a very large blank wall at the end of a blind alley, and the Republican Party is headed for it at top speed. Maybe the party can find comfort in the words of the most famous candidate produced by a brokered Republican convention:

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

Or maybe it can't.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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