Who is in charge of the Republican party? It seems more and more each day as if no one is, certainly not John Boehner, who cannot control the extreme, right wing Tea Party members of his house. These members of Congress seem hell-bent on destroying their own party and have no qualms about taking down whoever gets in the way. The amazing thing is that they are not so much standing by their principles, but picking whatever fight they can that they think will hurt the president.

These are people who were elected to help govern the country. This group of right wingers are also driving a wedge in their own party. Their latest fiasco is the battle over Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding. This should be a simple matter. DHS oversees all the various agencies that combat terrorism, a much-needed agency in light of all the terrorism that is occurring throughout the world.

The Republicans will not let this be a simple funding issue. In order to slam the president, they attached the issue of immigration to this funding bill. They are going all out in order to get back at the president for his executive action on immigration. The more rational portion of the Republican Party says that they do disagree with the President over immigration, but that it is a separate issue that should not be used to withhold DHS funding. As Representative Peter King(R-NY) states, this is “the delusional wing of the party.”

The Republican Party seems to have one agenda: Do anything to make the president look bad. That plan will have dire consequences. According to a news poll done by CBS on February 17th; 60 percent of Democrats, and 59 percent of Independents say that DHS should be funded and not attached to immigration.

A bigger consequence will be at the voting booth. The Republicans do not want to acknowledge that the demographics of the country are changing. The Latino vote is essential to anyone running for office, especially for the presidency. In 2008, Obama got 67 percent of the Latino vote, McCain 32 percent, and in 2012 Obama got 71 percent and Romney 27 percent, yet these numbers do not seem to have any influence on the Republican party.

The smart thing to do at this point would be to step back, to allow DHS its funding and address immigration separately. The Republicans should come up with a sound and reasonable immigration plan of their own. With the delusional in charge, however, this seems highly unlikely.