Jun 11, 2014 2 min read

Earlier this week, Sen. John McCain remarked that the Republican Party will again lose the presidency, no matter who they nominate in 2016, if they block immigration reform.

If McCain’s prediction is correct, we can probably safely tune out the chatter of the next two years and calmly await the arrival of President Hillary Clinton. The staggering primary defeat Tuesday of U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House and second-in-command behind Speaker of the House John Boehner, almost assuredly means any form of immigration reform emerging from Congress before 2016 is about as likely as beings from a distant solar system landing on the National Mall and asking for tickets to the White House tour.

Part of the reason Cantor, who no one would have accused of being a left-winger, or even a reasonable moderate in the mode of Arlen Specter or Tom Ridge, was ousted by tea party-annointed candidate David Brat is that he was perceived as being too willing to compromise on immigration reform. No, he didn’t want to offer a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented residents in the United States, but perhaps allow those who were brought here as children to stay. The voters in Tuesday’s GOP primary in Cantor’s Virginia district moved quickly to extinguish this small glimmer of compassion or balance. Brat’s supporters, and other tea party adherents, will brook no accommodation – they want to deport 11 million people, among other things, regardless of the practicalities involved or the cost.

The party that brought forth leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower is continuing its long slide into extremism. It will be good news not just for the GOP, but for all Americans, when Republicans start to march back to the center.