Expendables

A Republican county official in Texas has survived a vote to oust him after several local party members took issue with his Muslim religion.
Texas Republicans fail to oust Muslim official over religion

When I first heard about this, I was suspicious. It seemed to be just enough of a parody of Islamophobic Republicans that it couldn't possibly be genuine. But, of course, it is, because Islamophobia has gathered enough of a following within the Republican party that [Grand Prairie precinct chairwoman Dorrie O'Brien had] "previously slammed her Republican colleagues for not intervening in what she called a 'stealth jihad' and 'Leftist/Shari'a Zuckerberg-ization of Tarrant County'," without being laughed out of the group.

While it does make for an eye-roll-worthy change to point and laugh at a group of people who see bent on confirming people's stereotypical view of the Republican party, it does point out one of the problems that arises from a two-party system that is effectively composed of roughly equally-sized coalitions of voters with widely differing interests. Each party has set of voters (and thus, officers) for whom "can't live with 'em, can't win elections without 'em" is an apt description.

While the Tarrant County Republican party may have responded to Dale Attebery's resignation with a heartfelt "don't let the door hit you on the way out," the fact of the matter remains that if there are too many people like Mr. Attebery in the ranks, their disaffection with the party's refusal to go along with their belief that party Moslems are untrustworthy potential fifth columnists will result in their losing elections.

Now, given that Texas is a fairly Red state, the number of defectors that it would likely take to destroy the party's hold on local electoral office is fairly high. Embarrassing sectarians, therefore can easily be shown the door. But this isn't true everywhere, and it's those places where Republicans feel they need every vote they can get where questions of who is able to have their opinions mirrored back to them by the party apparatus will really become important.