chapotraphouse

It was always the base, but up until the second Dubya term it was a base that dutifully got in line and followed marching orders from the GOP establishment, whom they believed was the bulwark preventing socialism from taking hold. That establishment was one of big money and Ivy League (or similar elite universities) education. When the neocon experiment went off the rails the base turned on the establishment. At first that produced the Tea Party, which was fiery and got some electoral wins but was too much of an incoherent mess (see: get the government’s hands off my Medicare). Ironically, Trump and Bannon gave it a focus with paleoconservative revival and broad stroke cultural nationalism (as opposed to the evangelical, biblical literalism agenda that was dead on arrival in the courts) that could be channeled into a movement past the Trump cult of personality.