The Tea Party is five years old this election season, which means it’s done teething and spitting up on itself, but still prone to temper tantrums, irrational outbursts and threats to take its toys and storm off if it doesn’t get its way.

As a movement, it is down to a couple of former talk-radio hosts running for office in two states of the old Confederacy, Texas and Mississippi. And in the latter, the Senate candidate, Chris McDaniel, has given a keynote to a group that considers Abraham Lincoln a war criminal. It’s not hard to make the case that the Tea Party has been distilled down to it logical essence.

“They don’t want to go to the moon,” said the comedian Bill Maher. “They want to howl at it.” Still, the Tea Party has also been around long enough to have a record, of sorts. Let’s look at the legacy:

No significant legislation, no changes for the better in American life, and no compromise, of course, with the majority of voters who say in numerous polls that the Tea Party has been mostly a negative force in politics. One follows the other, since by the absolutist nature of their philosophy Tea Party members believe that any effort to govern with those they disagree with is traitorous.

But they did bring us — drumroll — the government shutdown! Remember last fall, an extortionate attempt to deprive millions of Americans access to health care through an established law? It was ruinous. The economy took a direct hit of more than $20 billion, and 800,000 people were without a paycheck. An extremist fringe of one party in one house of one branch of government brought the day-to-day functions of the United States to a standstill.