The house editorial in Sunday’s Wall Street Journal correctly noted the determined shrinking of the Republican House majority by the Chaos Caucus. The editors have, though, laid off the internecine fight to the wrong cause: fear of kamikaze acts like shutting down the government.

That’s the editors’ misplaced cause. That fear exists, but shutting down the government is hardly a reckless move, as past shutdowns have amply demonstrated, for all that Republicans are incompetent in getting their message about such things across to us ordinary Americans.

No, the real cause is the refusal of the Chaos Caucus to compromise with their fellow Republicans within the Republican caucus. They don’t want a unified Republican caucus that moves things along steadily via internal compromise and then exercises its majority control of the House to get those Conservative priorities passed there. Such compromises would move things in the Conservative direction in a step-by-step, and so durable, fashion. Instead, the self-important ones in the Chaos Caucus demand they get what they want in a single giant leap. With that our way or the highway attitude, they’re guaranteeing two things: the Republican caucus gets virtually nothing, and Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, perhaps as soon as this spring or summer.

But wait—Republicans only have a majority in the House; they don’t control the Senate or the White House. That’s true. And that’s where House Republicans could make even better use of their unity: let the Progressive-Democratic Party in the Senate and White House shut down the government—to the extent that would be any sort of disaster—over its refusal to compromise with Republicans.

The Chaos Caucus “Republicans” know that full well. It’s almost like those worthies are Progressive-Democrat moles.