Of course, to most Americans, this is just a bunch of parliamentary gobbledygook. The Beltway ruling class thus knows it can use the necessity of holding two votes to have it both ways — in the classic John Kerry formulation, to vote for it before they vote against it. Chanting the “it’s just procedural” mantra, Republicans vote in favor of cloture, knowing this ensures that the massive borrowing and spending bills they purport to oppose will move to a final vote, at which point the Democratic majority will rubber-stamp them. When the final vote is taken, Republicans thunderously cast their impotent “nays.” Then, they go back home, wear the nays like battle scars, and tell constituents how vigorously they are fighting against Washington’s wicked ways.

Engaged conservatives are on to the ruse. Notwithstanding the Republican establishment’s campaign to marginalize them as what the Journal obligingly labels a “rump kamikaze caucus,” their ranks are swelling. Without them, the Republicans would not have recaptured the House in 2010. Increasingly, they mount primary challenges against Beltway relics. They don’t win all the time, but they win quite a few — like long-shot Ted Cruz’s stunning primary rout over the party’s preferred candidate. And there is a more serious danger for GOP leadership: The conservative base increasingly wears the establishment’s disdain as a badge of honor.

Beltway Republicans do not seem to grasp how ominous this is. They so crave pats on the head from the “let’s make government work” commentariat that they’ve lost any feel for people who are wired differently, who see government as the problem, and who want it substantially downsized. In the end, the “let’s make government work” crowd is with the Democrats; the “kamikazes” are the ones the GOP must have. Condescension toward the customer is never a particularly good business strategy.