Ponnuru argues that Republicans have misinterpreted Bush-era transgressions, leading to the disastrous delusion that they must "avoid accommodation at all costs — that the principal obstacle to achieving conservative policy goals is a lack of spine and not, say, a lack of popular support":
That mythology influences the Republican presidential primaries … It’s why they have, to an unusual extent, showcased unpopular ideas that have no chance of going anywhere, such as abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency. … Meanwhile, the real mistakes of the Bush years keep being made. Republicans had nothing to say about wage stagnation then and are saying nothing about it now. The real cost of Republicans’ fixation on ideological purity is that it distracts them from their real problems, and the nation’s.
Larison adds:
It is natural for activists and high-information voters to believe that their preferred policies will help their party win elections, and it is understandable that they interpret electoral defeats as punishments for following the wrong policies. … It is part of a mentality that says that we can have it all, which is the same mentality responsible for overwhelming public support for entitlement programs combined with strong hostility to paying for them.
The Dish 