The Tea Party Is Dead. Long Live the Tea Party.

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From John Boehner, addressing the issue of a war between the tea party and the GOP establishment:

There’s not that big a difference between what you call the tea party and your average conservative Republican.

Correct. Not anymore, anyway. There was a war between the establishment and the tea party, but the tea party won a pretty resounding victory. There may still be establishment types and Ted Cruz types in the GOP, but the Republican Party as a whole has adopted the tea party line lock, stock, and extremely smoking barrel. It’s been as total a victory as you’re ever likely to see in the real world.

There are always going to be candidates who are more or less rightward, but that’s just normal politics, not a war. The war is over. Nationally speaking, the Republican Party is now all but indistinguishable from the crowds that rallied to the tea party banner in the spring of 2009.