My thought is that the Republicans have long (since 1968 or so) sought political support from a large section of the population that they haven't had much inter

My thought is that the Republicans have long (since 1968 or so) sought political support from a large section of the population that they haven't had much interest in actually representing. Bingo. I'm just old enough to remember hearing about Nixon's "silent majority" a few years after he used it; per Wikipedia: The term was popularized by United States President Richard Nixon in a November 3, 1969, speech in which he said, "And so tonight—to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans—I ask for your support." In this usage it referred to those Americans who did not join in the large demonstrations against the Vietnam War at the time, who did not join in the counterculture, and who did not participate in public discourse. Nixon along with many others saw this group of Middle Americans as being overshadowed in the media by the more vocal minority. And his record was very mixed: got us out of Vietnam ("Peace with honor", later betrayed, of course), detente with the Soviet Union was the best he could achieve there, which a lot of us groked, and the masterful opening with China, which was probably a necessary part of winning the Cold War. Economically, though, ugh, although he was dealt a terrible hand. Closing the gold window (although that allowed Ford to allow us to own gold again), his wage and price controls with authoritarianism we hadn't seen since FDR and their inevitable distortions and nil accomplishments, establishing the EPA, OSHA etc. (which ran out of control not much later), heck, trucking and airline deregulation was a Carter thing. But we felt he was largely on our side, even if not so competent about it domestically. Ditto Ford, and Reagan of course 100%. But since then ... do I need to, for this audience, detail the records of Bush father and son? McCain hates us with a burning passion, and have you ever heard of anyone calling himself a "severe" conservative aside from Romney ? Not I in 45 years of self-aware "conservatism" (scare quotes because of how that word has been degraded to the point of uselessness; I like the "Militant Right" nowadays). You can reduce a lot of Trump's appeal to what one Iowa caucus put on his ballot: "Donald Trump, because fuck you". Or You "conservative" "pundits" still don't get it: Trump isn't our candidate. He's our murder weapon. And the GOP is our victim. We good, now? (https://twitter.com/empireofjeff/status/632271934907138048 https://twitter.com/empireofjeff/status/632271934907138048) That's the GOP establishment, of course, which after way too many betrayals we have every intention of terminating with extreme prejudice, with Trump being just one instrumentality.