“Political parties are shaped by their members.”
That’s logical but have you seen what’s happened over the last 8 years?
What happened was as the GOP became more successful, and more importantly, became the National Defense Party, ideas like fiscal conservatism got drowned out. With a Republican president and, after the retirement of Dick Armey, a new Majority Leader leading the GOP who were not interested in fiscal restraint, but instead were more interested in big “majority expanding” initiatives, far too many Republicans followed. After all, they were ‘winning’, and they were able to convince themselves that in these extraordinary times, there should be no restraint, neither fiscal nor constitutional, in the defense of the nation.