Rep. John Boehner (R) shocked his party and much of the country last week after he unexpectedly announced his resignation as Speaker of the House. Boehner was elected Speaker in 2011 when the new Republican majority in The House was riding high on the emerging Tea Party movement. 
Despite his decidedly conservative tenure as Speaker (Boehner dutifully towed the conservative line on issues from Obamacare to immigration reform) he still managed to earn the ire of his party’s hard-liners. Despite his overwhelmingly conservative voting record, the same far right who helped make him Speaker is now applauding his resignation. They had somehow come to see the: anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-union, anti-environmentalist, anti-gun control and devout Catholic representative as being too “moderate.”
John Boehner could be seen as a casualty in an ongoing Republican civil war, his resignation another crack in a long fissure on the right that has been growing for years, and has only gotten bigger since Obama took office. 
The group that lead the main charge against Boehner is known as “The Freedom Caucus.” Made up of thirty-eight members of Congress who are almost entirely white, male Tea Party conservatives, the Freedom Caucus represents a brand of republicanism that takes an Alamo-style approach to politics; unable to accept any of the changes in American demographics and culture and who are determined to hold off the 21st century, down to the last man.
Twenty years ago, no one would have been able to challenge the conservative credentials of John Boehner and few, if any, would have seen his token ability to work with Democrats as making him “moderate.”
But the paradigm that seems to exist for Republicans today seems to be one that pits regular conservatives against ultra-conservatives, and little space is left for anything “moderate.” This could explain why the Republican primary is already one of the most laughable spectacles in years, with Donald Trump filling the impossible void that the Tea Party created. The far-right is simply too racist to vote for Bobby Jindal and too proud to vote for Jeb Bush even if those are the strongest candidates in a currently weak field. 
Between the Tea Party purging its fellow conservatives and Donald Trump’s inadvertent position as national jester and Republican primary frontrunner, the right American right seems content to cannibalize itself as a matter of principle. Those left of spectrum need only to bring their popcorn and enjoy the show; the mighty elephant of the G.O.P. is looking more like a circus animal than ever.

Maxwell Sharp is a Tower co-editor. Email him at maxcsharp88(at)gmail.com.