Updated at 6:13 p.m.: Revised to include a comment from Dorrie O'Brien.

Over in Tarrant County, where Republicans just lost a few races in the most conservative urban stronghold in America, you’d think the GOP would be hyperfocused on 2020.

But no, rather than rallying around candidate recruitment and fundraising, some Tarrant Republicans are busy fighting over a Muslim in their midst.

A small but decibel-mighty faction is determined to remove the county GOP vice chairman, Shahid Shafi, a two-term Southlake City Council member, a surgeon who has held hospital leadership roles across the region and — heaven forbid — a practicing Muslim.

Seemingly short on common sense and unconcerned about another batch of negative headlines, jihad-fearing precinct chairs are eagerly awaiting Jan. 10, their next opportunity to vote Shafi out.

Dr. Shahid Shafi is a two-term Southlake City Council member and vice chairman of the Tarrant County Republican Party.

For the sake of what’s just and fair — which in this case is also what’s best for the Republican Party in Tarrant County — the anti-Shafi crowd would be wise to do some intense soul-searching.

Earlier this month, deeply conservative Tarrant County tipped for Democrat Beto O’Rourke over the eventual winner, Republican Ted Cruz. And both a state Senate seat and a county commissioner spot flipped from red to blue.

The Nov. 6 results hardly knocked Tarrant Republicans from king of the political mountain, but voters did throw a well-placed brushback or two. In response, county party chairman Darl Easton has said he’s eager to get an early jump on the next election cycle.

But hold on a minute — not before a red-blooded American housecleaning, say a small number of precinct chairs.

Easton’s appointment of Shafi to the No. 2 spot last summer almost immediately riled up the vocal minority, which maintains that the Southlake council member must be removed because he is somehow, some way connected to Islamic terror groups.

It’s a sideshow of nonsense, but no laughing matter.

The far-fetched accusations finally became so specific that Shafi decided to release a long statement responding to each one.

For the record, Shafi said, he became a U.S. citizen in 2009 and is a longtime Republican. He said he is not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood or any terrorist organization. Nor is he even connected to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic advocacy group. And never has he promoted Sharia law.

Shafi noted that the call for his removal “plays right into the false narrative of racism and bigotry fomented against the Republican Party.”

But the anti-Shafi faction seems all the more determined to live down to that stereotype.

Dorrie O’Brien, a Grand Prairie precinct chairwoman, most recently tried to force a vote on Shafi at a Nov. 10 GOP meeting. When time ran out during that closed-door session, the issue moved to the January agenda.

O'Brien and other disgruntled precinct chairs didn't respond to repeated attempts by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram for comment. She responded to my message late Monday with a short reply that she doesn't trust the "leftmedia with anything I say" and that truth "is never guilty." But she and her supporters have a lot more to say on her public Facebook page.

O’Brien wrote in a Nov. 16 post: “I don't know why you [pro-Shafi precinct chairs] can't accept the fact that Muslims like being Muslims and Dr. Shafi is following the law and tenets of his theocracy, which includes lying to the non-Muslim because it advances the cause of Islam.”

Four days earlier, O’Brien lumped precinct chairs who disagree with her into her terrorism conspiracy theories: “CAIR is clearly closely involved with getting jihadis into public office in the U.S. By extension, you [precinct chairs] are working closely with CAIR, too, and doing the work of a terrorist organization. In your fervor to protect an Islamic operative, you’ve become Islamic operatives, advancing the cause of Islam.”

I wish I could say that this is the worst of what I reviewed on Facebook from O’Brien and others urging her on — but it gets a lot uglier.

Take a look and you’ll better understand why some political experts referenced this fight as a factor in Tarrant Republicans’ Election Day defeats. Now, each week that this highly combustible situation continues is one more that deters GOP work to rebuild momentum.

Even the county's party leader acknowledged as much. Easton, who appointed Shafi with the blessing of his executive committee of precinct chairs, told the Star-Telegram, "The party over this issue is more split than I've seen it in the past." He continued, "The only thing I'm concerned about is how this will affect candidates in the future."

So why doesn’t Easton just bring the hammer down on this sorry state of affairs? Blame that sticky thing called democracy. The elected precinct chairs are part of a grassroots, bottom-up political organization — and if enough of them want to vote on an issue, chances are they can cause that to happen.

Precinct chairs generally take their jobs very seriously; their passion and commitment can border on rabid. When political leaders get in their way, the response is often a loud cry along the lines of “don’t try to keep us down, you country club Republican elite.”

That’s the fine line Easton is walking as he seeks to hold Tarrant County for the GOP in 2020.

The GOP’s several election losses in the county were among the most surprising in the state. In the aftermath of those results, it doesn’t make sense for Republicans to continue digging the hole deeper. The fight is a gift for the Democrats in a diverse and growing county.

I wouldn’t bet 2 cents on O’Brien changing her mind about Shafi between now and Jan. 10. But I hope the precinct chairs she is trying to sway will stand up for what’s right.

The Tarrant County GOP is better than this — and their constituents deserve better than this anti-Muslim foolishness.