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I feel like you're neglecting/underselling the impact of TARP and the 2008 bank bailouts. This caused a major schism within the GOP between "Wall Street Republicans" and "Main Street Republicans" that became the impetus for the both the Tea Party, and Evangelical Wings of the party striking off on their own and trying to nominate thier own candidates. The main reason that McCain won the nomination is that he was one of the few "mainstream" big-name Republicans who had questioned the wisdom of the bailouts and had urged restraint beforehand, and as such he was seen as one of the few individuals who could plausibly unite the disparate factions.
Other than that, excellent write up.
The TARP bailouts were an important flashpoint, and I may have considered including them if I wasn't running up against character limits, but there are a couple problems here. First, McCain was already the nominee by the time bailouts were a consideration, so they had no role in his winning the nomination. Second, McCain famously suspended his campaign to work on a bailout deal. Third, as politically contentious as the situation was, McCain openly sided with Obama and president Bush in his support for the bailouts, and ended up voting for them. The main reason they don't really fit within the argument I'm making, though, is that opposition wasn't limited to the Right. If you were a lefty millennial who was pissed off about the bailouts there were plenty of other lefties who shared in your frustration. Hell, it was the basis of the whole Occupy movement. So while I agree that TARP was a catalyst for the current issues in the Republican party, I don't think it offers much in the way of explaining why Millennials haven't moved rightward.
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