Over the next couple of weeks, the fate of, well, some pretty big things — the Republican Party, the American system of government, the global economy — rests with about 20 people: Republican members of the House who have said they favor a straight-up continuing resolution that funds the government. No re-litigating Obamacare, no scaling back Social Security — just a “clean” resolution that would leave those other conservative causes to be fought about on their merits some other day.




In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
