The evolution of political movements and parties is interesting to study. A strain of progressivism existed in the Republican party from the beginning and it took over the party in the Lincoln, Grant and Roosevelt administrations. Taft, Harding and Coolidge represented the Conservative wing of the party after Teddy before Hoover took the party left again.
Robert Taft represented the right in the forties and fifties but he wasn’t the Conservative that would come later. Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain and Romney were all eastern internationalist hawks but most were weak domestically. I think it says a lot that George W. Bush was probably the most Conservative of that group.
If Trump gets the nomination he will be another of those eastern establishment types and I expect would resemble Nixon or Ford if elected.
I haven’t even mentioned the radical middle. George Wallace, John Anderson, Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan and now Trump all seemed to have appealed to the same group of voters. They may appear to be conservative on some issues and moderate or even liberal on others. Dig deep enough on a Trump supporter and you’ll find a Perotista.
With Trump you get a wall. No wall then he loses all support and is one termer then Cruz comes in and fills the void. He builds the wall then he gets 2 terms. Still Cruz comes after. It is win win.
You are right with that. I stand corrected on my group combining. I hesitated to mix the establishment with the Trump supporters because they hate each other so much. Truth is they do very much mix. The difference is they are vying for the same power, so they must be enemies whether they are much alike or not.
In your posts I read a very intellectual mind. You sound like a teacher of some sort.
With my wife's family and mine, 3 generations of voters, we have 1 democrat and zero Perotistas. We feel that Perot was a hired hand of the Clintoons to give them the election. All of us will crawl on broken glass to elect Trump.
With our close friends/relatives in the midwest and in Californiacator land, both blue collar and people with multiple degrees, including West Point and Annapolis grads. We are all for Trump. None of them or us ever voted for nor supported Perot.
There are two wives of friends, who say they don't like Trump because of his immigration stances and language. Their husbands in private will vote for Trump and probably so will their wives and never admit it.
We are probably no longer considered to be conservatives. we despise liberals, the GOPe and consider ourselves to be Americans.
Freepers like nopardons and myself remember how Reagan was called and labeled as evil by the phoney California elite Republicans. He kicked their a$$es as well as the democrats and the mediots who tried to destroy him.