The year 1996, the last time the GOP took its toys and went home rather than fund the government, hasn’t loomed so large in Washington since it actually was 1996. Democrats, the media, and a not insignificant number of Republicans are convinced the looming shutdown will be just as disastrous for today’s GOP as the previous one was for Newt Gingrich’s. Meanwhile, the Tea Partiers in the House, at whose behest the shutdown is being instigated, have spent the weekend insisting this time will be different because … well, the why isn’t entirely clear, but it has something to do with the fact that Obamacare is involved.

There is, of course, much to be said for the 1996 analogy given that it’s our most recent example. But I’d argue that the more relevant case study is the payroll tax fight of late 2011, which involved the same players as today, the same internecine Republican dynamics (Tea Partiers versus Speaker John Boehner and a number of Senate Republicans), and the same media environment. The bad news for Republicans is that 2011 was every bit the rout 1996 was—arguably much more so. Republicans were able to hold out for a respectable 21 days back then. The 2011 fight was over in 48 hours.

The payroll tax fight essentially began that September, when Obama proposed a stimulus package that included an extension of an existing payroll-tax holiday. Throughout the fall, Obama traveled the country touting the importance of that provision, so that workers wouldn’t face higher taxes when it expired in January. The House GOP spent most of that same time resisting the extension, notwithstanding the party’s traditional tax cut stance. But as it became clear that the pure rejectionist position was untenable, they adjusted it somewhat: By late fall, House Republicans were no longer opposed to extending the tax cut in principle; they just wanted to offset the cost with spending cuts elsewhere.

As Christmas approached, the two sides were stalemated, and so Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid struck a deal with his Republican counterpart, Mitch McConnell, to extend the payroll tax for two months while they sorted out a longer-term agreement. (The deal would have also extended unemployment benefits and prevented Medicare reimbursements to doctors from abruptly dropping.) The White House blessed the arrangement, which passed the Senate by an 89-10 margin. It looked for all the world like the House would approve it too—McConnell’s conversations with Boehner led him to believe the Speaker was on board—until Boehner presented the deal to his caucus by way of conference call on Saturday, December 17. In a ritual that has become tediously familiar since then, the Tea Partiers went ballistic and Boehner promptly backpedaled. The following Tuesday, December 20, the House passed a bill that extended the payroll tax for a year but offset the cost by cutting spending elsewhere in the budget, and attached a variety of unrelated initiatives, like a draconian reform of the unemployment insurance system.

It was less than a smashing success. Two days later, the House was in full retreat and accepted the Reid-McConnell compromise. Boehner was so eager to stop the public repudiation of his party that he kept his rank-and-file on mute when he announced the reversal via conference call: it was no longer up for discussion. Then, in February of 2012, a few weeks before the end of the two-month payroll tax cut extension, Republicans quickly accepted the yearlong duration of the holiday, without the cockamamie add-ons they’d previously insisted on, and with no offsetting spending cuts. The victory for Democrats was nearly total.1 “[W]hat I've come to realize is that in divided government you don't always get what you want,” bleated Sean Duffy, one of the freshman Tea Partiers involved in the original rebellion.