Regular readers will remember that for the few months on either side of the new year, I was pert near hysterical about the Debt Ceiling. And there is a reason for that: it is really important. If the United States defaults on its debts, this will cause our borrowing costs to go up. People (conservatives especially) like to focus on our total debt. But debt itself doesn’t matter. What does matter is how much it costs to service that debt. Everyone understands this in their own lives. That’s why people like to get credit cards with 10% interest rates rather than 25% interest rates. Right now, the United States has one of the lowest debt service costs it has ever had since World War II.

But the exact same conservatives who claim to be so worried about the debt don’t seem to have any concern at all that they could double the yearly cost of that debt with their idea of breaching the Debt Ceiling. I’m not the only person worried about this, of course. Ezra Klein has been equally concerned in his neutral, wonky way. And today he reported on the House Republican establishment arguing with the rank and file about not shutting down the govern and instead threatening a debt ceiling crisis. As Klein notes, “Trading a government shutdown for a debt-ceiling breach is like trading the flu for septic shock.” That’s absolutely right.

I think he also gets the internal politics right. The establishment knows that a government shutdown and a debt ceiling breach would be bad for the Republican Party. But the shutdown threat comes first, so they use whatever argument they can to avoid that. When the debt ceiling crisis comes, well, they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. He further explains:

The question is why the rank and file House Republicans (and much of the base) feel as they do. This isn’t just that it’s a bummer to be in the minority. As I’ve written about again and again and again, the Republicans are no longer a normal political party and have become a revolutionary group. There are many aspects of this. But the main thing is the quasi-religious belief structure. I wrote only yesterday regarding Louisiana Republicans blaming Obama for Hurricane Katrina, “It is no longer the case that Obama is a president Republicans disagree with; he is the president who is hell bent on destroying the one true America that each Republican just somehow divines.” For the revolutionary, it is always a crisis; nothing else justifies their extreme tactics.

Think of me. I’m very politically engaged. I think politics matters. In fact, I think that income inequality is a life and death matter. And I am not above histrionics. But I’m no revolutionary. I agree with John Dickinson in 1776 when he says, “If you have grievances, and I’m sure you have, our present system must provide a gentler means of redressing them short of revolution.” And I agree with that knowing full well that we don’t live in a democracy. But things are not so bad that we should destroy the whole system. The more extreme Republicans want to do exactly that, although they would claim that they want to take America back to some previous time when it was pure. (And never existed.)

So given the crisis that Republicans see, any political tactic, no matter now extreme is valid. They aren’t thinking about the next election; they are in a life and death struggle where they fancy themselves as Churchill, the Republican establishment as Chamberlain, and Obama as Hitler. And it is all made concrete with Obamacare. The truth is that now is the final fight. Once implemented, resistance to the law will quickly die out. I don’t say that because it’s going to be wonderful. But the conservative movement has set expectations so high that if 2014 doesn’t bring Armageddon, people will be relieved. And given that Obamacare has been trumpeted as the greatest threat to personal freedom since Stalin, the religious fervor is understandable.

I believe this could all lead to a debt ceiling breach. The stakes for conservatives really are that high—or at least they think they are. And as a liberal, I know that it would be good for my cause in the long term. But also as a liberal, I know it would be terrible for the people in the short and medium term. As I said: I’m not a revolutionary. So I do hope that the Republicans remain sane on this issue and do what is in their own best interests. For once, their best interests are the same as the nation’s.