A *very* brief history of Republicans in the 21st Century ..... and today
The party that had its own Commandment about not attacking each other created a faction within themselves. This faction was created to divert attention from a party basically left in ruins after the W fiasco which was painfully illustrated by the 2006 Midterms and losing the White House to a black guy. This new faction, the self-named Teabaggers, created energy and drew daily news coverage. It was tailor made for the news drama industry.
The problem always was going to be giving the usually controllable rabble a voice. They rode this crowd without actually giving it power then the powers thought it would just fade away. It jumped up and bit them voting out (with Democratic help) the #2 Republican in the House in a primary - Cantor. Time passed and this crowd was clearly going to be subdued. THEN this empowered element voted for Trump in early primaries and, with tons of media support, created a swell in a wildly wide cast of candidates. Then the unthinkable happened- the nomination and then the win. No one saw that coming. No one.
This small unneeded cast of characters forced the party to stop whining while President Obama could no longer give them cover, they would have to govern.
Today a band of 30 (80 if you believe the bespectacled dimwit Brat who replaced Cantor) empowered by the money people in the party - for pennies really - exposed the entire apparatus as a joke.
Today it was literally "A House divided..." and they couldn't make a stand.