The conservative movement began to die in the 1980’s when conservatives failed to find and unite behind a conservative who would sustain the Reagan revolution. By 1988, the Republicans had to choose between George Bush and Robert Dole—Tweedledee and Tweedledum—for their presidential standard bearer.
I was too young in the 1980’s to realize how evil the GOPe was back then. I thought Reagan was just a typical Republican. I didn’t know he was an anomaly and the establishment hated him. They disguised Bush the elder’s globalist agenda making him appear harmless so I voted for him twice. Ugh.
What Eric Hoffer said about every great cause starting out as a movement, becoming a business, and ending up as a racket was as true of establishment conservatism as anything else, with one exception. It seems as though after 1988, it skipped the business phase and went straight to racket.
They could only keep the racket going because the alternative was always marginally worse, i.e. nobody of sound mind voted "for" Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, or Romney, they voted against Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, and Obama. Trump was the first general election candidate with a vision and an enthusiastic base of support since Reagan. Most of Trump's supporters didn't just vote against Hillary, they voted for President Trump.