Trump pushed out most of the traditional conservatives (who had criticized him and that he resented and who he considered to have mixed loyalties) and made it so only personal loyalists could survive. That was possibly the worst disaster to ever befall the Republican party in the last hundred years.

People like Thomas Sowell have warned about a certain tipping point that gets reached with certain policies. I think it was Trump that actually pushed America over that tipping point. He was the unanticipated danger. The danger from within. He didn’t really care about conservative values or positions or leaders. Only whether they served him. And once he was in the center of the party there was no stopping him.

The movement that survived decades of the ups and downs of power, decadence, opposition, and humiliation was brought low in four years by their own dog. I don’t even know what the conservative party believes in any more, except opposition to Democrats, regardless of the issue. Trump promised to eliminate the national debt and instead increased it faster than any democratic president and pushed out fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan. He put that branch of conservatism in a grave. He didn’t lower taxes and decrease spending. He didn’t increase taxes and increase spending. Instead we got the worst possible combination, the worst of both worlds. He decreased taxes and increased spending.

So in a way Trump made both sides happy by giving them what they wanted, but without the hard part of both positions that would at least have made the nice part somewhat workable. Which is actually the worst possible strategy. Getting everything you wanted isn’t a realistic solution. Trump, perhaps, was the punishment God ordained for the Republican party when it crossed this line of compromise. To be hounded out by its own dog. To see its goals spoiled and its battle for the culture sunk to its lowest low. Now there is nothing left to do but pay the price.