You just listed the gun, abortion, marriage issues etc. that the GOP uses as emotional wedges to seduce conservatives into electing their candidates who then turn abound and vote to make government bigger.
I’ve seen this going on since the days of Richard Nixon who sent Spiro Agnew to attack liberal bias in the media.
The conservative movement back then was swallowed up by the emotions of the time and the real media bias. I hated the media for their awful one sided agenda.
But that RINO Nixon opened up China, made government bigger and cut the infamous Paris Peace Treaty, that the Vietcong violated later.
And the weapon of choice for Nixon’s fight against liberal media bias (endorsed by conservative leaders back then) was the Fairness Doctrine.
They went after NBC for doing a documentary attacking big corporations and their pension plans.
But most importantly two radio stations owned by conservative preachers ended up being taken off the air by Nixon’s FCC on Fairness Doctrine grounds.
You must have figured out why Julie Nixon Eisenhower (and Ron Reagan, Jr., for that matter) endorsed Obama.