But the trouble is that if John Boehner and Mitch McConnell could somehow crush the populists (and they can’t), they would also be crushing the best hope for conservative policy reform. That’s because, for now at least, the same incentives that shape the “bad populism” of the defund movement are also shaping the “good populism” that wants to end farm subsidies or reform drug sentencing or break up banks or cut taxes on families.

Their willingness to engage in theatrical confrontations with President Obama, for instance, is part of what lends figures like Paul and Lee and Vitter the credibility to experiment with ideas from outside the Reagan-era box. And their arm’s-length relationship to Wall Street and K Street makes them both more irresponsible on issues like a government shutdown and more open to new ideas on taxes, financial reform, corporate welfare, etc.

Obviously Republicans should be seeking a way to have the good without the bad: the innovation without the risky brinkmanship, the fresh ideas without the staged confrontations.

But for now, they’re stuck dealing with a populism that resembles Homer Simpson’s description of his beloved beer: It’s both the cause of, and the solution to, all of their problems.