Live from Evans Hall: The curse of Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon continues...
The Republican Party elites thought that they could trap a large chunk of what was the white nativist and racist chunk of America in with the elites (and so they could deploy their votes), but instead the Republican Party elites find that they are trapped in with what is now their base (and so have no choice but to at least pretend to adopt their policies):
: The Village, the Base, and Saint John McCain: "Over the weekend we were told that... Donald Trump would implode now that he had dared to question John McCain’s heroism...
...But lo and behold, he’s still hanging on to front-runner status for the Republican nomination.... The short answer... is that the inside-the-Beltway crowd... confused its own perceptions with those of actual voters.
Inside the Village, McCain is a sacred figure... the Maverick... a wise man on national security despite his warmongering... a constant presence on the Sunday talk shows. So the villagers expected everyone to recoil in horror when Trump ridiculed his war record--you’re only supposed to do that to Democrats. But the Republican base really doesn’t care very much... about military heroism... [or] get[ting] Osama... don’t care about some old guy who lost an election.... He still embodies the base’s id in a way the Village doesn’t seem to understand.
