Tout les Toobz are abuzz about the story in the Washington Post about the alleged panic among Republican power brokers that Dr. Ben 'The Blade' Carson and the Libidinous Visitor, Donald Trump, aren't returning to the carny midway where they belong. Me? I see an awful lot of B'rer Rabbit in the mournful moanings, and especially in the plaintive sighs aimed in the direction of Willard Romney. One of the reasons I have my doubts is that Eric Fehrnstrom is being treated as a sage early on. But the most important reason is that there is an awful lot in the story that seems wrong to me. For example, here's Austin Barbour, Haley's nephew, rending his garments.

"If we don't have the right [nominee], we could lose the Senate, and we could face losses in the House. Those are very, very real concerns. If we're not careful and we nominate Trump, we're looking at a race like Barry Goldwater in 1964 or George McGovern in 1972, getting beat up across the board because of our nominee."

At this point, given the firewall of gerrymandering that the party has erected, the Republicans could nominate Zombie Rutherford Hayes and not lose the House. The Senate? OK, you might have an argument there, but the House? Not unless the nominee gets caught in flagrante with a goat atop Reagan's grave.

The real problem the party has is given voice by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and she points out a characteristic of The Base that is too little noticed. Not only is The Base out of its collective gourd, it is also made up of spoiled and petulant children who understand politics and government about as well as it understands molecular biology and fluid dynamics.

You have a lot of people who were told that if we got a majority in the House and a majority in the Senate, then life was gonna be great," she said in an interview Thursday. "What you're seeing is that people are angry. Where's the change? Why aren't there bills on the president's desk every day for him to veto? They're saying, 'Look, what you said would happen didn't happen, so we're going to go with anyone who hasn't been elected.' "

By all means, force the president to veto bills defunding Planned Parenthood and unleashing Wall Street and taking people's health-insurance away and knuckling Hispanic people every day. Even if you could do that, which you can't, because the Democratic legislative caucus can stymie you at the various chokepoints, why would you? To open a gender gap the width of the Straits of Gibraltar? To fall into a demographic abyss, never to return. Life is not your favorite talk-show, folks.

But I still think all the concern from "respectable" Republicans is overblown. They've still got god's own treasury behind them, and enough clout to rig the primaries once people actually start voting. I could be wrong. They could nominate someone out of the wild kingdom, but they're built their infrastructure well enough to withstand a McGovern or a Goldwater. And, by the way, Richard Nixon had no coattails in '72; the Democrats maintained their House majority and they even picked up two seats in the Senate. Because, well, you know, Nixon.

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

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io