Politico's Jake Sherman and Manu Raju published a story this morning about the "creative ways" Republican congressional leadership is trying to avoid a government shutdown in response to President Obama's executive order on immigration. Tactics they're considering reportedly vary between "...offering a separate piece of immigration legislation on the floor aimed at tightening border security and demanding the president enforce existing laws, promises to renew the effort next year when Republicans have larger numbers in both chambers, and passing two separate funding bills—a short-term bill with tight restrictions on immigration enforcement agencies, and another that would fund the rest of the government until the fall." Leadership has only got a couple weeks to pass a funding bill. All the new young eager Republicans elected in the midterm are seemingly itching for a shutdown. They think shutdowns work. After all, Republicans shut down the government last year and were rewarded with wins in the midterm election, right?

And Red State's lead troglodyte, Erick Erickson, is demanding a shutdown in a post titled "Shut. It. Down." Erickson says, "This is the second shutdown where the GOP got blamed and saw no catastrophe at the ballot box." For context, Erickson has a severe case of winner's fever right now—he believes the midterm elections signified both the Great Awakening of the Conservative Electorate, and the Great Refutation of All Obama's Policies. He tweeted this on midterm election night:

Americans just won back control of America.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) November 5, 2014

So now that he walks down the street believing that everyone agrees with him, Erickson sees the shutdown as just another tool in the toolbox. He urges Republicans to "set the course. Defund Obamacare and block amnesty. Obama can defy the will of the people and refuse to work with Congress. Sure, the GOP may get blamed. But so what?" Then he underlines his own point: "That is key here—so what." These actions, he's saying, have no consequences for Republicans, so he's urging his own party to shut down the government rather than allow President Obama to enact immigration reform. And Erickson thinks this will have no effect on his party. The thing is, he's right. The people who voted in the midterm elections—white, wealthy, old—would cheer the Republicans on as they shut the government down. But in presidential election years, when the greater electorate wakes up and pays attention, Erickson's silent majority again becomes the screeching minority. How do you believe a multicultural electorate would interpret this shutdown?

Until either the Democrats learn how to get people to the polls in midterms or the Republicans manage to eviscerate voting laws to the point where only old white men get to vote, this is the America we're going to live in—a battle between two completely different electorates alternating at the polls, with the two parties misinterpreting those election results as ironclad mandates. Extreme conditions like government shutdowns are in danger of becoming standard operating procedure.