Another very long one: this is what I do. I’m mainly walking through a series of tangents and correlations over the past decade that — in my opinion — tie into why the GOP is imploding today in a way that hasn’t been discussed all too often. The last few paragraphs summarize this, if you really don’t have time to read the finer details.

It’s a relatively-common talking point these days: that the rise of Trump is a mere manifestation of what the GOP has been promoting — albeit via dog-whistles and covert assertions — for the better part of 50 years. That by speaking to those with racial biases (subconscious or otherwise) in coded language and slowly morphing that language in order to be less overt, they created the conditions for a demagogue who was willing to blurt out the same talking points overtly to catch fire and take the reins of their movement.

And all of this is true.

However, I don’t believe that this is the full story. I covered the former from the perspective of Southern Republicans baffled by Trump in in a previous diary, and also addressed an auxiliary component of the Trump-catching-fire phenomenon: that the GOP’s gutting of working-class communities and economies created the conditions for people to not only embrace someone who turns those dog-whistles into loudspeakers, but also created the conditions for people to embrace someone who offers a different economic vision.

The GOP built this, too.

Have you seen the shift? It has been relatively slow and easy to miss if you have partisan blinds on, but the Republican Party is undergoing a massive shift on economics that people would have thought impossible just ten years ago.

THE RAMP-UP (2009-2010: DEMOCRATS’ ROLE)

Warning: this section will be one that will get some people’s underwear in wads. I really don’t care if you disagree with me on the priorities and I’m not going to go round and round with you over it: I’m merely running through this because I do believe that the sentiment that is now destroying the GOP began during this time. It’s not a major focus point of this piece, but it’s necessary to touch on for the broader story of pain that was felt, left and that has allowed the GOP rebellion to be born. My broader point still stands whether or not you think my criticism of Democrats here is valid, since Democrats were/are not the primary antagonizing force at work.

Since the 2008 election — in fact, literally the day after the election — the GOP has been doing everything it can to obstruct a Democratically-elected President and Congress. For those in doubt, this is not an abstract claim: there were formal strategy sessions on how to best accomplish it. For the past six years, they have had equal ownership in the nation’s future by controlling at least one chamber of Congress. They had an implicit responsibility to work for the betterment of the country during a very difficult time. They opted not to do so.

I wouldn’t be the first to say that the Democratic Party’s priorities and messaging were flawed and/or bass-ackwards during their two years in complete power. It was the most productive session of Congress in 50 years. A lot of great things did get done. At any other moment in time, said accomplishments would have likely been met with more enthusiasm and positive reception by the American people. But it wasn’t any other time.

People were legitimately suffering in ways that hadn’t been experienced during our lifetimes. The single-biggest changes between 2005-2010 economically-speaking were home ownership, employment and investments. Of those three, the last would have been legislatively impossible to rectify/guarantee in any significant way; they were built upon a foundation of lies, speculation and greed. The other two, however, were within the legislative grasp of a Congress more dominated by one party than at any point since Bill Clinton took the oath of office.

Democrats chose to make their signature legislative priority during this time healthcare. Don’t get me wrong: healthcare is vital to a sound country and sound economy, as it’s the largest single industry in terms of per capita spending...but it’s not where the largest segment of newly-hurting Americans were actually hurting. A larger than average number of Americans who lost their jobs and/or their homes were likely dealing with the reality of no healthcare insurance prior to the collapse. The Great Recession dramatically increased this figure...but Democrats had already decided — prior to the 2008 election and before the massive spike in uninsured took effect — that this was going to be the priority in a Democratic-controlled Congress (if you believed the campaign rhetoric at the time, anyway).

I think that was a misstep. Now, it would have been great if we could have done everything. Apparently, neither the political capital nor the political will was there to get it all done in two years. Healthcare eats away at the bottom line, but so does not having a job or a home — and in ways more profound than the former. I believe that a massive jobs program and foreclosure prevention program would have been the better way to go from both an economic standpoint and a messaging standpoint. It’s a lot easier to explain “we’re going to put you back to work and save your homes” than it is to explain “we’re crafted a public-private healthcare insurance solution with an individual mandate to help and/or require you to obtain insurance over the next few years”. We paid a price for our bungling on this...at least when it comes to messaging. The GOP also paid a price for this (more later).

I know some will disagree with me on this point. I believe ACA to be fundamentally flawed in many different ways — some completely unforeseen and unintentional (i.e.: the Supreme Court ruling Medicaid expansion unconstitutional). Nevertheless, what policy produces and becomes is more important in the long-run than what policy was intended to achieve.

Democrats failed to win the messaging war on a very convoluted piece of legislation at a time in which people were looking for immediate help and simple explanations to very new and complex problems. The fact that the uninsured gap after several years has only been closed by barely one-third — especially when you consider that a sizable chunk of that reduction has been produced simply by more people going back to work and obtaining employer-based healthcare — is disheartening when you consider the political price we’ve paid for it (a generation of gerrymandering that will prevent us from governing most states and/or having majority control of Congress).

Was this really the single best policy that could have helped the largest number of people in the most substantial way, in the shortest amount of time, and at such a difficult time? I don't think so. Good macro-level policy is all about that primary concept (produce the most benefit for the most people as quickly as possible and with the fewest disruptions). But I digress.

THE GOP STRIKES BACK (2011-2014)

We all know the story: Democrats get slaughtered in 2010, the GOP takes control of the House, and Democrats only manage to hang onto the Senate because we had two successive cycles in which we absolutely dominated in Senate contests, and which couldn’t be erased even in one huge wave.

The Tea Party movement was fundamentally a populist one in terms of what the common people believed. Nevermind that it was funded by billionaires: the everyday people who allied with this group were mad over many of the same things that the rest of us were mad about, at least at its core. Different partisans and different ideologues have different ways of expressing that anger and frustration; the Tea Party was an (earlier) right-wing expression of the same anger and frustration that Occupy sought to channel; that both Trump and Sanders have tapped into now.

The GOP understood that the economy was in a precarious situation. Despite its orthodoxy that dictates it serve the interests of big business, those in the top tax bracket, and a plethora of other elite establishments, it was a populist surge that brought it back from the dead. This fundamentally laid the groundwork for what the GOP would become, but seemingly at first, some control could still be exerted over its voters. After all, there was still a Democratic President and a Democratic Senate. The GOP was in no position to will into existence all of the demands that the Tea Party wanted to see.

As time progressed, however, the revolutions became more pronounced and more frequent. Debt ceiling debacles, government shutdowns, and grand displays of defiance on even the smallest of issues — added onto the general obstruction that had already been in place for a few years — were the indicators that the establishment was losing control. Nevertheless — and at least for a time — these revolts were largely confined to the halls of Congress.

Note: the obstruction is foreshadowing.

A perfectly winnable presidential election was thrown out the window. The better part of a dozen perfectly winnable Senate seats were, too. The internal rebellion was growing in power, but the establishment still tried to maintain control.

What reforms, progress or assistance of substance was accomplished during this time? Nothing. In contrast to the 111th Congress (2009-2010) being the most productive in decades, the 112th Congress (2011-2012) went down at the time as the least productive Congress in decades. That record would later be broken by the 113th Congress. You get the idea.

Despite the doom and gloom from Republicans and the optimistic packaging from Democrats that “we’re back”, the truth about the economy during this time was somewhere in between. The world wasn’t nor isn’t falling off of a cliff, but people continued to suffer. A permanent underclass was born during this time as millions upon millions of people entered years-long stints of unemployment that they would never emerge from again. What role did the government play in this?

A crappy one, if you can even call it that. Inaction became the name of the game. Substantial economic reforms cannot be achieved without legislative actions, of which there was none. Millions of people — conservative, moderate, liberal; Democratic, Republican and independent; political and apolitical — experienced the same fate: their cries for help going unanswered.

Then came the 2014 elections.

THE DOWNFALL OF THE GOP (2015 — PRESENT)

Another slaughter for Democrats. Objectively, this slaughter was even worse than 2010 in terms of raw vote, but add to that a newly-minted set of GOP-slanted maps in a midterm year that produced comparably awful results across the country. Despite the slanted map, Democrats also imploded in contests that were not be subjected to gerrymandering. Democrats lost the national popular vote in gubernatorial races in 2010 by 0.7 points; in 2014, by 4. In senatorial races, by 5.5 in 2010; by 6.5 in 2014.

Republicans really had a mandate to govern in Congress at this point, at least if we are to respect the outcome of elections (turnout was the lowest since we were sending millions of men off to die in Europe).

It’s hard to vote when you’re fighting half-way across the world. What was America’s excuse in 2014?

What did they do? They continued to obstruct rather than govern as equal partners with a President who was democratically-elected twice by national margins larger than their national margins in most modern congressional and gubernatorial elections, and with some of the highest modern levels of voter turnout.

2015 was when the GOP began to wake up.

Suddenly, the rumbles of rebellion got a lot louder. With the GOP in complete congressional power and nothing changing (much at the behest of the establishment), all hell broke loose.

Their Speaker opted to step down gracefully, but only because of a coordinated plot by members of the House that would have surely ousted him in a leadership vote. It was like pulling teeth to find anyone who would be willing to replace him. The establishment finally managed to put one of their own in the position, but not without a ton of back-and-forth.

Nevertheless, the elected leadership is not the true face of the rebellion and downfall that began; they merely reflected the climate. That rests solely with the voters.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE (REAL) TRANSFORMATION?

Donald Trump has changed everything. Considered a pariah and joke candidate by an establishment that had won all too many battles against the Bubba-class in previous years, his influence was allowed to grow virtually unchecked. Every step of the way, the establishment has been behind the curve in stopping him, and when they do try, it has been a case of “too little, too late”.

But none of this explains why Donald Trump has been so successful. As I explained in my previous piece, with social issues, it is not what he says but how he says it. The GOP has been saying the same things that Trump is now broadcasting for the world to hear for 50 years. He is just doing it in a way that irks the establishment and outs their true colors.

As I also explained in my previous piece, the bulk of conservative voters have been left behind or objectively harmed by GOP policies at the local, state and national level for decades. Up until now, they have been perfectly willing to go along with this...because many GOP voters’ disdain for other groups of people has been stronger than their actual concern over personal economic livelihood. Some would say “they’re voting against their own self-interests”. No, they have just had different priorities when it comes to what they consider their own self-interests.

Obstruction. Obstruction, obstruction, obstruction. For almost a decade now, the GOP has succeeded at what it set out to do: block anything from happening if it is not their own pure and unadulterated ideas, and even when it is their idea, block it anyway. Even if it hurts their own constituents. For a long time, this has little to no obvious consequence for many of their voters. Sooner or later, though, something had to give.

GOP ORTHODOXY IS DYING

Nevertheless, the GOP has sensed this shift. You may have noticed it as well. The first sign of this occurred several years ago, when the GOP began to talk about "crony capitalism". Certainly a talking point that was necessary during such difficult economic times, and during the midst of a populist uprising within their ranks. Still, it was (and is) amazing to hear the Republican Party talk about any type of capitalism in a negative light.

But it didn’t stop there. Trump has unleashed a plethora of challenges to conservative orthodoxy, and guess what? The people are buying it.

Take for instance the growing rift among Republicans on trade. Did you ever think that you would hear GOP presidential candidates talk about “fair trade”? Even if it is often in the context of “I believe in free trade, but I believe in fair trade”, it is a revolution in and of itself. Free trade is a fundamental conservative principle . It is liberals, leftists and (originally) communists who promoted the idea of fair trade and tariffs. Yet not only is the most popular and presumptive GOP nominee embracing both fair trade and tariffs, but you hear a plethora of GOP leaders defending fair trade as well. The GOP is talking about fair trade more than Democrats are talking about fair trade . Chew on that for a minute.

Then, there is the increased hostility and rhetoric against Wall Street. Trump has led the charge on this, but it is not merely him saying it or believing it. This sentiment is rising up from within the ranks of GOP voters. If you know anything about Connecticut, then you would be gob-smacked to discover that 41% of Connecticut GOP primary voters believe “Wall Street does more to hurt the U.S. economy than it does to help it”. Even just a few years ago and even during the Recession, these numbers would have been unfathomable.

What about Social Security? Majorities of Republicans stand by the program — this isn’t necessarily anything new — but the proposals as to what to do it have changed dramatically. Trump promises to protect Social Security from cuts and privatization, and the voters agree with him. Remember Paul Ryan’s “brilliant” plan for Social Security in 2012? Ha.

I could go on and on, but the biggest indicator is simple: the most economically-liberal Republican in the race is now the presumptive nominee. One article explains it rather succinctly:

“Authoritarians want protection from threats. Why not from economic threats?”

COMING FULL CIRCLE

Why is this happening to the GOP? Here is my theory:

The GOP has spent a decade obstructing any economic reforms that would improve the lives of countless millions of Americans. Many of those Americans are GOP voters, regardless of what the establishment might like to think. They see a world in which their livelihoods and their prospects are fading by the day. They may blame us and they may not be completely aware of the connection between their party and its responsibility, but what they are aware of is that the standard Republican Party isn’t delivering for them in any meaningful way and that something has to change.

The obstruction of the GOP has created the conditions for a mass uprising of populism in this country and in their party. When people hurt hard enough and for long enough, they tend to revolt. While it may not be a bloody revolution, it is certainly becoming figuratively bloody for the Republican Party.

The most “progressive” GOP candidate on economics is winning by leaps and bounds. From Wall Street and the failures of capitalism, to government healthcare, fair trade and Social Security, he is destroying the GOP as we know it. He is throwing out the window multiple tenets of conservative orthodoxy considered as fundamental to the cause and the party as sliced bread is to sandwiches. He is getting away with it. And he is getting away with it because Republicans have gotten away with obstruction for far too long.