The polling here [1] confirms precisely what I have been saying for over a decade now… that the rank-and-file of the Republican party is far more conservative anything that either party has coughed up since Reagan, and probably to the right of Donald Trump, as I was saying prior to the election of Trump.
Frankly I think most Republicans are surprised that he’s been doing as well as he’s been doing, particularly given the circumstances.
Romney, forever The Establishment stooge, has been trying to cut the political center for a lot of years now, which is precisely why he lost his own presidential bid. You see, the political center has never existed. Absolutely never.
If nothing else, the election of Donald Trump shows us that. If it changes the nature of the Republican party to a genuine rock-solid conservative party at its leadership levels, I’m all for it.
Then again, I said the same thing during the Reagan Administration, after which the Republican establishment, who was never fond of Reagan to begin with, spent the next 25 years trying to erase his legacy and the influence of the lessons he taught.
For further angles on this I point your attention to an article [2] I wrote a couple of years back.
I hasten to point out that Romney never backed Ronald Reagan back in the day, either. Simply put, Reagan wasn’t part of the supposed middle-of-the-road establishment, Romney, along with the rest of the GOP establishment of course… has never been able to see the level of disconnect between the ideas he’s been promoting and what the voters want.