maybe unrestricted free trade does indeed have its drawbacks, maybe it raises overall wealth but does indeed also create losers who are worse off than they were in pre-globalization times? maybe these senate republicans noticed how much trumps protectionist rhetoric and his tirades against these downsides of free trade resonated with the base? maybe its not so much fear of trump himself, maybe they just realized that their pro free trade convictions are not capable of winning a majority of the republican base for the forseeable future?

the GOP establishment//GOP orthodoxy has, for a long time, acted against the interests and the beliefs of the conservative base. see, for example, the tea party, which emerged long before trump. see the lack of juice and enthusiasm in romney's 2012 campaign.

trump is not the reason why the base turned on the GOP establishment and its ideas, he's just the messenger.



for details/further reading, I recommend the following article from early 2016:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-great-republican-revolt/419118/

the first 2/3rds, which describe this alienation between conservative base and party leaders (who are devoted to the agenda of the "donor class"), are a great read. the last 3rd is kinda up in the air and wrongly predicts the further development of the 2016 election cycle, but is still a decent read.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Jun 13 2018 03:58am

some good points but i see the difference between the bolded as moot. Trump just rode in a wave he's only partially responsible for creating, however he is undoubtedly the face of the movement. "fear of trump" shouldn't be taken literally, but it also should. Part of that fear of trump is his base labeling you a RINO and ousting you in primaries, part of that fear is them doing it because Trump calls you out personally in a twitter rant. Those who do not fall in line have a tendency to make it into a 5 am tweet storm, possibly with your opponent mentioned as a better choice for all of your electorate to read. Worrying about a fractional base is worrying about Trump, he's the one at the face of the movement which has the republicans more fractured on a multitude of issues than they have been for nearly a decade in oppositional politics under Obama. and for years before that sentiments of patriotism and and other conservative values surged post 9-11. Republicans can still beat democrats with the party they have, they're just also beating each other up in primaries and in the legislatures at a rate we haven't seen for some time.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Jun 13 2018 05:36am

Well, Democrats, too, are seeing more rebellion against the DNC in their primaries than they have in decades. Both parties are in disarray. Ive said it before and will happily say it again: we're in the middle of a massive realignment period, the old fault lines between left and right are phasing out and making place for the new defining fault line of our generation: globalist vs localist, open society vs protectionist society.

Other than that, I tend to agree with you. I probably tend to underestimate the importance that individual politicians have as a symbol/figurehead of a political movement.

Because it is

Keep on sputtering if you want

i think the difficulty here is that on the right we have a figurehead who's responsible for the fracturing, and even most alt right people agree with that and support it (drain the swamp!). while on the left we have a group who's responsible for fracturing the left in their attempt to rig a primary for HRC. She's less of a figurehead for the fracturing we're seeing now, other than some random book signings where she or her husband say something headline worthy she pretty much rode off into the sunset. Trump is an everpresense, but as POTUS and his predictable twitter habits. We're always talking about him because he's always talking, i'd say it's a chicken-egg situation but he was tweet storming for years before he ever had a following. The guy is a magnet for exposure, and with exposure comes both scrutiny and praise.

Trump really is a genius at drawing attention.

In the primaries and election i agree. Now its easy, he's potus. For all his whining about media spotlighting him they should. Hes potus.

Interesting, but not sure what to do with it. Truth in important in political discourse. Sure, sometimes focusing on correcting a person for the convenient lie they use is not worth the time, but if you have a legitimate gripe with something, use facts to back up your argument.

Even as Potus, he possesses an uncanny control over the news cycle and the direction of the public debate. Everything is about Trump these days, to a degree it never was about Obama, or Bush, or Clinton. No matter how much most of the media hates Trump, he nonetheless has them in the palm of his hand, in a certain sense.

If Obama said and did stupid shit all the time, he would've controlled the news cycle.