What's becoming undeniable is that core members of the GOP hate their base.  We first saw this trend emerge during the Tea Party era.  Heck, it even happened when Reagan, a populist, became president.  The big question is why this is so.

Josh Hammer wrote a compelling piece, which I recommend, describing and detailing this phenomenon, but he doesn't address the why of it.  One would think that, to retain power, the old guard would begin to reflect its base's interests, yet it doesn't.

I suggest that this failure is because the GOP is no longer conservative in the sense of being pro-Constitution; pro–free market; and, most important, pro-American.  Instead, establishment Republicans are ideologically oriented to the same agenda that powers the Democrat party: a toxic soup of globalism, socialism, and nihilism, all of which emerge as anti-religious policies; obeisance to "diversity, inclusion, and equity" and Critical Race Theory"; and a complete buy-in to radical environmental theories.

Image by Andrea Widburg using a picture from cookie_studio and Republican rally 2016 by Michael Vadon.

Both Thomas Sowell and the late Angelo Codevilla have noted that it's not just that the establishment Republicans have drinks and socialize with their Democrat peers, but also that they share the same fundamental attitudes.  They, too, are committed to a new world order of socialist/elitist oligarchic dominance and, most importantly, rule by elites.  No regular, churchgoing, working people with conservative values need apply.

There's an old military saying that you must take care of your people if you want to be a respected and effective leader.  Republicans don't care about their people or leadership.  They're busy feathering their own nests, and to hell with their base of solid citizens who believe in and live by traditional American values and concepts of government — that is, consent of the governed with a proper respect for the inalienable rights declared in the founding documents.  The Republican leadership is, quite simply, filled with elite dilettantes more than willing to betray their own base as long as they can retain power.

John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D. is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.