A civil war is raging within the Republican Party, with major donors and Amnesty/ Immigration Surge supporters mobilizing against Tea Party candidates. The bitterness is so great that there is finally MSM realization that a Third Party might well emerge from the convulsion. Of course, a Third Party would be pointless if it just espoused the same old ideas louder. But possibly, just possibly, the climax of 2013 Amnesty Offensive might result in new ideas—and even a new leader.

Sarah Palin, the fertility goddess of the Tea Party base, raised this prospect by saying there was already a Third Party, headed by “good guys” like Ted Cruz as opposed to the “GOP machine.” [Sarah Palin pushes 3rd party of 'good guys' by Jose Delreal, Politico, September 24, 2013] Rush Limbaugh has called the Republican Party “irrelevant” and Erick Erickson of Redstate.com speculated that what's coming might be a “real third party movement that will fully divide the Republican Party.” [The Conservative War on the GOP by Molly Ball, The Atlantic, October 17, 2013]

Even Sean Hannity, who notoriously flip-flopped to support Amnesty following the 2012 elections, is now speculating about whether a third party might be necessary as “there's no difference between the two parties, at this point.” [Hannity Suggests 'Third Party' to Sarah Palin, Who Won't Rule Out 2014 Senate Run by Andrew Kirell, Mediaite, October 16, 2013]

There's also a political opening. According to a new poll from NBC and the Wall Street Journal, more people say they would vote for a Third Party than the Republicans. According to the poll, 35% of voters say they would support the Democrats, a figure that has been steady for three years. However, 8% of voters have abandoned their support of the GOP since it captured the House, leaving only 28% of voters willing to say they would support Republicans, while 30% say they would vote for a Third Party. [Boo! Voters prefer third party candidate over Republican , by Mike Flynn, Breitbart, October 31, 2013]

However, it’s important to note that, up to now, this Third Party talk has been tactical and emotional, rather than strategic and driven by substantial policy difference. Grassroots conservatives are obviously tired of supporting a party leadership that is constantly in retreat. After years of voting Republican and watching the country get worse, ordinary activists are beginning to understand that the Republican Establishment is complicit in the drive to dispossess Americans. Conservatism Inc. and the Obama Regime are objective allies. The historic American nation is their common enemy.

Unfortunately, unfocused opposition can lead to political disaster. Thus, instead of empowering a populist revolt against the Republican leadership, the government shutdown has led to a pushback by business groups and Republican officials against grassroots conservatives. Business groups are enthusiastically backing Speaker John Boehner and even preparing to fund primary opponents to elected Tea Party officials. In the words of a corporate lobbyist with the priceless name Dirk Van Dongen: “I don't know of anybody in the business community who takes the side of the Taliban minority” (by which he means the Tea Party). [Business groups stand by Boehner, plot against tea party, by Jia Lynn Yang and Tom Hamburger, Washington Post, October 17, 2013]

Similarly, Karl Rove and other Republican officials have long been mobilizing against “Tea Party” groups. Rove's “Conservative Victory PAC” is designed to beat back Tea Party challengers—earning the ire of movement leaders like Erick Erickson of Redstate.com, who says that Conservative Victory Project is “painting targets on the backs of a lot of candidates, marking anyone they support suspect and ripe for defeat.” [Conservatives War of Rove super-PAC, by Alexandra Jaffe, The Hill, February 5, 2013]

But who are these dangerous “Tea Party extremists?” One of the key targets: Congressman Justin Amash, a Tea Party libertarian from Michigan who has aggressively challenged Speaker Boehner. Note that Amash actually has a shaky record on immigration, being a product of the new open borders libertarianism, though he has thus far refused to endorse full citizenship for illegals. Amash is a media-friendly libertarian who leans further to the left socially than the typical Republican. His limited government beliefs are seen by business groups and Republican grandees like Rove as a liability... because he actually means them.

The paradox of the “Constitutionalists” and “Tea Party” surge: right now, there's no real difference in ideas between the movement and the Republican Establishment. What is different: the Tea Partiers are willing to use more radical tactics and even suffer political defeat in order to achieve their ideal of limited government. It’s not clear how successful this will be.

Still, behind this seemingly shallow conflict is something deeper, and more primordial. Thus Court Jester Jon Stewart mocked Karl Rove, Charles Krauthammer, and other Conservative Inc. gatekeepers for allowing the Tea Party to get a foothold in the first place. He exclaimed, “You opened Pandora's Box!” What Stewart and his ilk are afraid of are not “limited government” conservatives, but the deeper motivations of Tea Party conservatives, who see, quite rightly, that their nation is being taken away.

The implicit politics of white identity—what we used to call American patriotism—is fuelling the Tea Party movement, even if it is funneled into foolish or tangential causes. Both liberals and Conservatism Inc. know the Tea Party could turn into something genuinely new—even if the Tea Party itself doesn't see it.

The cognitive dissonance between a militant conservative wing driven by dreams of national redemption and Conservatism Inc. motivated by the short-term desire to keep its snout in the Washington Dc trough will finally collide in the upcoming battle over immigration. House Speaker John Boehner is clearly eager to surrender. But his hand is stayed by fear of grassroots anger, and even by some Conservatism Inc. types who know that Amnesty is Republican suicide. However, the Open Borders Left is piling on the pressure, and several House Republicans have already announced they have caved.

What will result the battle between the grassroots and what Ann Coulter has called the “Republican Establishment” of Amnesty supporters on ground neither one of them wants. The Left and corporate donors will not allow John Boehner to simply ignore this issue. However, Boehner can't be seen to surrender on an issue so soon after losing the Shutdown battle.

It’s theoretically possible that at least one figure within the Party—someone of the stature of Rand Paul or Ted Cruz—could acquire the immigration issue and use it as the battleflag of a renewed grassroots rebellion.

The political potential for a candidate who wants to distinguish himself in a crowded Republican Presidential primary is obvious. It raises the question why someone hasn't done it already.

Unfortunately, there's an answer to that that goes beyond the “donor riots” that until now have suppressed immigration patriotism whenever it has dared raise its head. Generally, Tea Partiers remain the true believers of the conservative movement, even as the Beltway Right obviously considers them just occasionally useful idiots.

A real Third Party would represent an ideological departure from the stale economism ideology of contemporary American conservatism. A useful model would be the patriotic message of Marine Le Pen in France, whose “fringe” party the National Front is now the most popular party in the country because of its exploitation of National Question issues about sovereignty, immigration, and anger at France’s post-national elite.

Talk show host Michael Savage clumsily moved towards such a departure when he stated “I don't want to hear any more about men walking around with britches on and wigs. I want to talk about today, now, America. I want a nationalist candidate.” [Michael Savage: Founding Fathers 'were just slave holding demagogues' by Jeff Poor, Daily Caller, October 19, 2013. Emphasis added]

Significantly, however, Savage was met with widespread condemnation by the conservative grassroots.

But whatever romantic dreams Tae Party conservatives have about “saving” their movement and about the panacea of “limited government,” the Beltway Right does not want to be saved. It was never intended to win. It was designed to lose gracefully, and profitably.

VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow predicted back in 2006 that immigration may be “one of those rare epochal issues with the potential to break the two-party system.” Before it can do that, it has to break the Republican Party.

In the end, the historic American nation must coalesce into a Right Opposition organized around the National Question if it wants to survive. The emotional resentment against the failures of Conservatism Inc. needs to solidify around a new patriotic agenda—not just more mindless slogans on Fox News.

This requires intellectual independence, political courage, and of course a leader.

Will one emerge during the Amnesty battle to come?

The answer will determine the future of the American Right—and of the historic American nation.

James Kirkpatrick [Email him] travels around the United States looking for a waiter who can speak English.