That is very well put. Even on Free Republic, in my opinion, people pay too much attention to the latest outrage from Bill Maher or Jon Stewart or [fill-in-the-blank].
Did Bill Maher call Sarah Palin a disgusting name? Who cares? That just elevates Maher (or anyone of his kind) to someone who matters.
Conservatives who are only weakly grounded to principles get caught up in “what’s popular” and politically in out-right populist causes that just seem to be about bashing an icon they don’t like, presented in the form of some new icon - like Trump - who they think is “on their side”. The drivers of populist causes are never on the true Conservative’s side but are trying to draw the weak Conservative to their side.
Fox News is no better at working in favor of weak Conservative’s descent into populist politics and in fact its business model depends, in part, on the ability of its Conservative stable of commentators to do just that. I’m glad Rush is not part of that.