Republicans are why Trump won

I don't mean the usual 'Trump won because Republicans are a bunch of sexist, racist, homophobic deplorables who love their own'.  I mean he won because of George Bush's speech.  That speech was a long way around demonstrating that he and Hillary Clinton were essentially two sides for the same coin.  It was a long winded way of saying the old is over and the new is inevitable, we hope Americans don't get hurt and maybe now we'll spend more time listening and at least saying we'll help, but it is what it is.  In this piece, Tucker Carlson gets it (a little vulgarity there, it is about Trump after all).

The GOP has long preferred a more Democratic world view.  By the mid 20th century, it was not the party of the blue collar, religious conservative.  That was the Democrat Party back in the day.  As the Democrats were torn down and reborn in the wake of 1968, those social and religious blue collar types were getting anxious.

Liberals say it was the 'Southern Strategy'.  That's a liberal wive's tale where the GOP purposefully chose to embrace Nazi inspired racism to appeal to Southerners who are nothing but racists.  There is a shard of truth to that, as there is to most myths.  As the Democrats finally gave up on discriminating against Blacks as a core value, and decided to make WASP Americans the New Blacks, the GOP realized that backing off on 'Southerners are a bunch of racist hicks' rhetoric might do them some good voter wise. 

It wasn't until 1980, however, and the election of Ronald Reagan, that Democrats came in busloads over to the GOP.  And it wasn't because Reagan donned his white hood and swastika.  It was Jimmy Carter's failed presidency and the growing radicalism of the Democratic party that had finally pushed them over.  As the Democrat Party became more and more about embracing feminism, gay rights, environmentalism and the 'America's best days are behind it' mantra, the Reagan Democrats looked to the Gipper. 

Reagan wasn't exactly a life long conservative.  Anti-conservative Catholics are more than happy to remind everyone of his earlier sins regarding abortion.  He was also the first divorced president in history.  But he had changed, and he made social conservative issues a presidential matter, such as opposing abortion, pushing back on radical feminism, and building up America's strength and greatness a cornerstone of his campaign.

Nonetheless, he was not loved among the establishment Republican base, those Republicans who reflect a Hearst like viewpoint: strong military to protect Wall Street interests while going home to the mistress.  Things like abortion and homosexuality were off the radar, and they preferred to keep it that way.  Hayseeds clinging to their guns and religion were not the people they hung with.  But it was the base that Reagan wooed.  And the GOP has been at war with that coalition for 30 years.

In 2016, we saw the result of that conflict.  Those who voted for Trump were only half opposed to the Democrats.  If they didn't want Hillary, they were just as against the GOP establishment represented by the likes of G.W. Bush.  Oh sure, he paid lip service to conservatives and religious traditionalists at election time, but never in a way that he thought would sever him from the admiration of the 'Insider.'   The same insiders, I should mention, who ravaged and butchered him in the same way they are doing to Trump, or have ever done to any Republican for decades on end.  I guess the lure of being liked by the in-people is enough to overcome reality.

By defining himself as a 'compassionate' conservative, Bush already showed the world what he imagined to be a typical conservative, and that was the problem.  His whole speech here, with only the slightest modifications, could easily have been given by Obama, Hillary, Biden or anyone on the Left within that circle of beautiful people.  He basically as good as said 'This is a progressive world folks, and we have to deal with it.  Some might get hurt, and that's a damn shame, and now that they've fussed we're willing to listen a little.  But progress is the name, and global liberalism is the game.' 

Again, most Trumpsters I know are far less vitriolic toward the Democrats than they are the GOP.  Some, I think, don't care what Trump does, as long as he leaves the Republican establishment as a smoldering ruin.