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AAQC'd. This is the best writeup of the past 15 years in American politics I've ever seen.
My girlfriend talks a lot about how the 2016 primary was a ridiculous joke, just a stage full of jokers. The fact that Trump was able to stampede over everyone speaks to how dire the Republican party situation was at the time.
But it also definitely speaks to the contempt that a lot of grassroots Republicans felt, and feel, towards the GOP. There's a feeling, grounded in truth, that the GOP never fights and never wins, they just keep compromising, while the left keeps winning. So Trump stood up and talked tough on immigration, and American greatness, and manufacturing, and even his facile ways of showing affinity for the working man (anyone remember him miming a pickaxe in a miner's cap?) was enough to win the undying loyalty of a lot of people. There's a forgotten America, and they don't want to be forgotten.
This is it. The momentum that @laxam mentions was momentum in favor of the neocon/neoliberal/uniparty faction of the GOP. As someone in the social wing of the party, I'm glad it hit a brick wall and splintered. Better to open the field for some sort of real opposition than to be stuck "voting harder" for Republican swamp creatures and desperately hoping they won't pull the football away at the last second yet again.
I don't know if you remember the era well or not, but I do. The Republican Party of that time wasn't 'neocon' (a term in ridiculously bad odour, something no one wanted to be associated with), this was the TEA Party party. And they delivered, at least partially as a way of being seen as fighting Obama. We got several government shutdowns or near shutdowns, budget fights for the ages, and Sequestration, which included deep cuts into ostensible sacred cows like the defense budget (something I can't imagine the 'neocon' boogiemen ever doing).
Looking back, it's a shame we didn't do more. The Federal fiscal situation is out of control and is on schedule to get worse, not better, as time goes on. I was outright disgusted when the Biden administration bragged about keeping cuts to 1% in 2023 budget negotiations. We'll have a crisis on our hands within the decade because we failed to do enough in the 90s (no balanced budget amendment), we failed to do enough in the 2010s (no path to balance and the tax cuts under Trump), and we're failing to do anything right now.
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