To GOP base, villain is still the establishment
glass ceiling. The most strident populists — Ron Paul, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann — could not get through the presidential primaries because the math wasn’t on their side. At least half of the GOP doesn’t want fire-breathers, so the winning candidate had to get a large slice of the traditional Republican vote and combine it with other constituencies. That’s how Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, John McCain and Mitt Romney did it.
But Donald Trump not only jumped into the fray at the height of populist fervor, the field was also divided 17 ways. No one spoke less like a politician. No one who understood how governing works would have promised the things Trump promised — health coverage for all, for less money, eliminate the debt, bring all those jobs back, etc. — because they’d either know or care that such things are literally impossible.
President Trump has learned this the hard way. Yet for the first eight months of his presidency, his core supporters have stuck with him. The establishment remains the villain and Trump the hero for his willingness to say or tweet things that make all the right people angry. For his most ardent supporters, the fault for his legislative failures lies with the swamp, the establishment or the “Deep State.”
But Judge Roy Moore’s victory last week in a runoff against Alabama Sen. Luther Strange may signal that the base is not Trump’s army to command. Trump endorsed Strange, and — contrary to the president’s tweets otherwise — that endorsement didn’t help. The most important factor was Moore’s demonization of the establishment, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The voters valued sticking their thumbs in the establishment’s eye more than giving Trump a win.
A lot of people are simply mad as hell and don’t want to take it anymore. Republican politicians can’t ignore the anger. Ideally they’d channel it toward productive ends, as they did in the past. But further stoking the anger for political gain is not just ill-advised, it’s pointless, because eventually politicians have to govern.