In case you haven't noticed, the old Republican Party is lying quietly in the boneyard of history.  Gone are the Doles and McCains.  The Romneys and Murkowskis will soon be joining them.  The latest demonstration of this new reality happened when Chris Christie was loudly booed as he was first introduced at the recent Republican debate.  BTW, it wasn't the last time he'll be booed, and, yeah, he's on the express bus to the boneyard, too.

Just to be clear, this is not particularly about ideology — but about attitude.  Trump's strength doesn't lie in his "charm" or whether he's read Milton Friedman or von Mises.  It's about his combative nature.  The problems we face are not about nuances of public policy.  The butts that Trump puts into the seats at his public appearances already know that the problem is the expansion of authoritarian government.  Period.

They don't want to be told about "kinder and gentler" forms of conservatism.  They do want to keep their God-given freedom...and are watching it being stolen from them every day.  There is already a bill before the California Legislature that would seriously impact the existence of grass lawns at commercial property.  They'll come for your residential front and back yards next.  A pragmatic solution for water shortages along the Pacific coast would be to construct a handful of new nuclear generating stations and use some of that electricity to power desalination plants.  It's nothing more than ideology that's standing in the way of such common sense.

An early example of the abject failure of the Republican establishment to recognize the distress being heaped upon their constituents occurred during the failed presidential campaign of 1996.  Former NFL star and congressman from New York Jack Kemp did a televised vice presidential debate against the Democrats' Al Gore.  Kemp was the darling of the Republican establishment because of his well publicized proposals to reach out to the benighted inner cities with such big government concepts as "enterprise zones."

At one point, the moderator had Gore and Kemp discuss the issue of government-mandated parental leave.  Gore typically spouted off about the profound distress being endured by working parents and the necessity of forcing employers to grant special privileges to workers with children.  He was, of course, forbidden to mention that much of the reason the mothers of America had to go to work was to come up with the money needed to comply with the accumulated increase in taxation that the prevailing establishment had imposed on us.

When the camera turned to Kemp, he lapsed into what Libertarians call "The rule of 65%."  He supported the concept of parental leave, but not to the extreme degree that Gore had just advocated.  Had Ronald Reagan been in Kemp's place, he would have just plainly said, "There you go again.  You're telling us that, if it weren't for government micromanaging how people are treated at work, they wouldn't have any realistic way of forming and raising families...even though they've been doing just that for thousands of years."

Trump is made of the same cloth.  And now that the mold has been broken, others are adopting some of the same characteristics.  Of particular significance is Speaker Kevin McCarthy.  Being a Republican careerist from, of all places, California, he has risen to the occasion.  Others are following.

The nagging question is whether or not Trump has a similar popularity among the American population in general as he does among what is now his Republican Party.  As it currently stands, the nomination is his even should he be convicted of making controversial statements about the 2020 election.  That's a crime?  Really?  To the thugs of the Deep State at least, it is a crime — as long as you're Donald Trump.  And his fan base all know that's total bunk.

What is not mentioned often enough is that the ongoing skepticism over the legitimacy of the 2020 election is not the result of Trump's utterances.  It is however, the logical conclusion being drawn by many of us due to the obvious incompetent nature of the Biden-Harris ticket.  Our electoral system has seldom, if ever, chosen such mediocrities over proven ability.  Like the rest of us, Pres. Trump is expressing his misgivings as he witnesses the continuing implosion of the Biden-Harris administration.  Throw in the burgeoning Biden bribery scandal, and only the most dogmatic, devout adherents would stay on their side.

Image: Joint Chiefs of Staff.