TIME column questions the value of a ‘RINO purge’

Rob Long uses his latest TIME column to urge caution among those who itch for a widespread purge of Republican officials who stray too often from the conservative line.

Every so often, the political and cultural ranks in China are convulsed by show trials and purges. The last time this happened, in the mid-1960s, it was called the Cultural Revolution, and it got out of hand: government bureaucrats and university intellectuals were paraded through the streets wearing dunce caps and insulting signs, jeered at by mobs. The goal was to sweep out the moderates, backsliders and “cosmopolitans” and replace them with a purer and more devoted class.

All in all, not a bad system when you really think about it–at least according to a lot of rank-and-file Republicans, who follow the events unfolding in Washington with something like the fervor of a Cultural Revolutionary. …

… The RINO is behind all those awful bills with the word comprehensive in their titles. The RINO is the grease that oils the wheels of lawmaking that result in “reform” acts that don’t reform, “tax cuts” that raise taxes, “oversight” that overlooks and “reductions” that increase. How could it be otherwise? Washington is designed that way. When the devil comes, he bears rib eye from Palm.

When you connect the dots that way, there really is only one solution: a purge. “I’m just trying to get something done” is the call of the typical RINO. “We were sent here to pass laws.” That’s a pretty accurate definition, of course, of the opposite of conservatism. What most of us on the right believe–and, full disclosure, I’m a total RINO–is that we have more than enough laws. We want our politicians to do as little as possible.

But the temptations of government are impossible to resist. Politicians gotta politate. And a RINO purge by the party faithful wouldn’t result in much, at first, except for the–understandable–tingles of joy at watching certain RINO fat cats (Hello, Senators!) marching down the street wearing dunce caps and signs that read, DESPISE ME! I’M A RINO! But maybe that’s enough.