re: #41 Testy Toad T

I think they’re betting their careers on the prospect that in a cycle or two, Trump will look like a singularly bizarre event, an oh-my-God particle of derp that shouldn’t be seen as a culmination of a generation of Republican strategy and discourse but rather a strange blip in the national consciousness.

It would be interesting to know what career penalties were suffered by backers of Goldwater, and see if that’s a path that current Republican office-holders think they can follow. Evaluated callously, it might not be a bad strategy.

Except the post Goldwater era was one still heavily dominated at the national level by white voters. That’s why Nixon and Reagan were able to deploy the Southern Strategy to electoral success. That electoral landscape is changing fast now, and by nominating, supporting and endorsing Trump they’ve tied themselves to the kind of intrinsically alienating figure that future moderate, liberal and minority voters aren’t likely to soon forget or forgive.