deangusmacteard
kiwifarms.net
Nah. Like with Dems, it's mostly virtue signaling - just with different virtues.
Trump would have sold like a shit sandwich if he hadn't publicly and repeatedly flouted hot-button Republican taboos that he spent years learning how to attack by following fringe Republican populists. Establishment Republicans are constantly scared of offending rich donors, Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, the immigration-hungry Chamber of Commerce, law enforcement, the intelligence community and press.
Trump just took a bunch of 80%+ popular beliefs and hammered them like a fiend: (polls linked from 2016 when possible - reminder: these same pollsters vastly underestimated Trump's performance)
- Politicians are owned by rich fatcats and Congress isn't doing its job
- America is in a constant state of losing wars that accomplish nothing (75% supported troop withdrawal in 2011)
- ISIS is a serious threat
- Our allies and trading partners are freeloaders who trash-talk our country while we pay boatloads to protect them
- Illegal immigration fuels drug-trafficking, sex slavery and violent crime (7% believe illegal immigration reduces crime + 75% consider illegal immigration a serious problem)
- Legal immigration should be lowered or kept the same
- NAFTA was a goat show that hollowed out American industry
- China is eating our lunch (2015 poll of leading economic power: 53% said China vs 33% for USA)
- The FBI & CIA are corrupt fuckups who generally make shit up for a living (33% believe official story of JFK assassination)
- The media is out of touch with - and hates the fuck out of - mainstream America
- The #1 priority for any politician should be JOBS JOBS JOBS
The crazy thing about Trump is not that this strategy worked - it's that nobody else had bothered to try it in the 21st century. The closest analogue was Clinton in '96, who won in a landslide.
The entire Republican base did, but the party insiders and elected officials hated his guts - and most still do. What you saw with politicians eagerly flocking to his side was survival - street smarts over genuine loyalty.
All the convention types hated people like Cruz and Rubio - they're the most rabidly-conservative people in America and they've virulently hated the party insiders for decades. Trump was their chance to throw a grenade at the RNC.
As for the brutality against Cruz's wife... the Cruz team tried to attack Trump over marrying a supermodel who did nudes and lewds way back in ancient history - so it was not exactly surprising that Trump went nuclear on him. Most voters DGAF.
Yep. And, eventually, he too realized that he didn't have a future in the party if he was Anti-Trump. So instead trying to beat Trump, he switched to trying to become Trump. He's mostly been rehabilitated with the base since then. Lyin' Ted --> Lion Ted.
