See, down south, as far back as the mid-eighties… Southern Democrats held power. Granted it was waning, but Reagan was definitely broadly appealing. The middle of the shift. Clinton being the end of it. Once he was gone, the South finally turned bright red.
No, I was around for Reagan. But the term… “radical extremist”… as opposed to a “moderate extremist” or a “radical moderate”…. TMK hasn’t been in the vernacular, at least when describing US politics. Maybe the tea party movement, but I digress.
Redundancies and oxymorons aside…
I said at least…
The image of these bunker types being anything but a minority, that even conservatives had a blindspot for due to whatever reason…. Demographics, policy-flippers, etc… didn’t really start to become the norm until at least the last decade… or two.
A Reagan Republican wore a business suit.
A Trump Republican looks like they woke up from a bunker, wearing a flag as a cape while holding a rifle like a patriotic cosplayer.
Yes, these kind of Republican constituents existed. But they were the minority. Nobody took them seriously. Not until it was much too late.
