Opinion: Fear is destroying the GOP from inside out

Four or five days into the government shutdown of October 2013, then-Speaker of the House John Boehner summoned me to his office. At the time, I was enraged by the recklessness that led to the shutdown, engineered by Sen. Ted Cruz and a cluster of his cohorts in the House over funding for Obamacare. How could Congress allow itself to enter a shutdown that many — including the Speaker — did not want?