The so-called Grand Old Party now faces a fugue of recrimination that could end in its demise. The party marginalized itself by becoming an alliance of corporate oligarchs with poorly-educated Southern suburban white trash religious fanatics, both using each other to browbeat the nation into transforming itself into kleptocratic theocracy. There are no more people of good will and intelligence left in that camp, and a blame-fest between its two remaining factions can only lead to a death struggle.
The beginning of the end really came with the death of William F. Buckley in 2008. Buckley labored for years to keep the John Birch Society and its agents out of the GOP's leadership circles. For those of you unacquainted with this organization, it was a group that coalesced during the early 1950s anti-communist crusade of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. The Birchers named themselves after an obscure American soldier and Baptist missionary executed by the Red Army in China during the final months of World War Two. The group was founded and funded by Robert Welch, a Boston candy manufacturer (Junior Mints, Sugar Daddy) tormented by conspiracy fantasies. Another founding board member was Fred Koch, father of the billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, who have become the latter-day sugar daddies of the Republican Party.