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Watching the Republicans resort to gold medal-level mental gymnastics to defend a Mafia boss like Donald Trump, you can really see how Trump's rise is the logical fulfillment of the "Base Strategy" developed by former Bush consigliere, Karl Rove 1/
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During George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, Rove, campaign strategist Matthew Dowd, & media advisor Mark McKinnon de-emphasized pursuing "independent," voters who made up a mere 6-7 percent of the electorate. 2/

Instead, Rove & co. focused more on driving turnout among the GOP's conservative base. They knew that Republican voters made up a larger share of the electorate in 2004 than during the Reagan years. More crucially, they knew that conservative voters were culture war voters. 3/

Going all the way back to the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign, conservative voters had for decades been marinating in a right-wing subculture, fed increasingly by the growing political awareness of Evangelicals, & the free-flowing funds of the moneyed classes. 4/

Pat Buchanan said it best during his speech at the 1992 Republican Convention, where he described the contest between Bill Clinton & George H.W. Bush as a "culture war" over "the soul of America." 5/
voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/buchanan-cultu…

This "culture war" pitted lily-white, bible-thumping, free-marketing, patriarchal, fried-chicken chomping, evolution-denying "values voters" against the alleged godless, commie, baby-killing heathens in the Democratic Party. The GOP has been playing this tune ever since. 6/

When you can convince a majority of your voting base that the other side is the evil second-coming of both the Antichrist & the global communist scourge, you have yourself a very DEDICATED voting base. 7/

By the end of the 1990s, the legacy of the Religious Right, Wall Street, & the Chamber of Commerce combined with the emergence of far-right talk radio, think tanks, the Militia Movement, & the arrival of Fox News to create a massive conservative infotainment subculture. 8/

Out of this right-wing subculture, Generalissimo Karl Rove mobilized an army of GOP-voting culture warriors who reelected George W. Bush, suffered through Barack Obama's two terms, & unleashed the wave of reactionary political sludge that put Donald Trump in the White House. 9/

If you find yourself following the #ImpeachmentHearings & wondering why the entire Republican Party decided to quench their thirst with the cultish nectar of the Trump Kool-Aid, remember that the party is still playing to the base. 10/

The Republican base has been primed for decades to embrace a patriarchal, proudly ignorant, materialistic, capitalist demigod. The conservative subculture has been drinking the Kool-Aid for years, & now the GOP brass has gotten high on their own supply. End.