Ryan Lizza looks at the ironic effects of Republican gerrymandering:
[P]arty discipline has broken down on the Republican side. On the most important policy questions, ones that most affect the national brand of the party, Boehner has lost his ability to control his caucus, and an ideological faction, aided by outside interest groups, can now set the national agenda.
Through redistricting, Republicans have built themselves a perhaps unbreakable majority in the House. But it has come at a cost of both party discipline and national popularity.
They need only cater to mostly white, mostly rural and mostly ill-schooled constituents, which means they can all pretend that the nation never elected Barack Obama or a Democratic Senate or cast more Democratic votes for the House.
They all, all of them, from constituents to GOP congressmen, can live not only in a swaddled ideology, but in a naked trope--a fool's paradise.