Best article of the summer. This guy gets it.
Located in the Reagan coalition and silent majority have been populists who are not ideologically consistent, and apparently see no need to be logically consistent.
They are often low information and emotional while the ideological are intellectual.
The media and ideological candidates have focused on ideological issues and ignored the fact that most people do not vote based on ideology.
Most people vote based on:
who is their friend and seems friendly.
who is the enemy of my enemy.
who is the alpha male.
I can find very few "educated voters" who like Cruz. The reason is, he's viewed as part of the "establishment" i.e., Washington. Even when he (sometimes) votes against the "establishment," he has been so far unable to build a coalition to lead. He didn't try to stop the Corker bill, voting for it (yes, I've heard his reasons). His shutdown attempt attracted ONE GUY (Lee). So if you propose to be a conservative leader, you darn sure better be able to at least get conservatives like Sessions (and, more recently) Tim Scott, and Jodi Ernst, and one would hope Rand Paul and others, to follow.
Hey, bob, don't break your arm while you're patting yourself on the back.
I tend to recall from my low information reading that Russell Kirk famously pointed out that conservatism is the antithesis of ideology so there's going to be a few conservatives who will have a problem with your ideological litmus test in the first place.
Located among the old Reagan voters are those of us who don't see the perfect as the enemy of the good. And considering the record of two-faced double-dealing we have gotten from GOP approved 'conservatives' in the years since Reagan left office I'm more than willing to give an imperfect patriot like Trump a chance.
With any luck he will wreak havoc on both the Obama Democrats and their evil collaborators within the GOP establishment.
I shall read, and I shall learn, and I thank you.