Sorry, George Will: The GOP became the party of Trump long before he became the nominee
"Over the past 40 or so years, the Republican party’s dominant ideology has gone from being the elite and snobbish conservatism of William F. Buckley (and George Will) to the delusional and paranoid extremism of the John Birch Society (and Donald Trump). Though there are a variety of different factions within the GOP, the loudest and most prominent members of the party are now either Tea Party extremists — half Christian theocrat, half libertarian (with none of the good aspects) — or fact-free demagogues running on a platform of political nihilism, eager to burn down the RINO establishment without any due consideration for those in the crossfire. Moderate Republicans — those who were once called Rockefeller Republicans — have grown ever so rare in recent years (and even those who are considered somewhat moderate, e.g. John McCain and Lindsay Graham, are belligerent war-hawks). After the election of President Obama, the spread of right-wing extremism and political nihilism, which had been slowly taking hold of the Republican party for decades, began to accelerate. The election of a black man with an unusual (and foreign-sounding) name triggered a massive reactionary backlash, and with the success of Trump, there can no longer be any doubt that the president’s race was a significant factor. If the president was a white man named Barry O’Brien, for instance, it is unlikely that conspiracy theorists would be professing him to be a closet Muslim who wasn’t born in America — and even more doubtful that the opposing party’s presidential nominee would be the most prominent popularizer of these ridiculous conspiracy theories. But alas, Obama is an African American, his middle name is Hussein, and Donald Trump is the GOP nominee."
