Rank-and-file conservatives, after decades of deferring to party elites, are trying to stage what is effectively a people’s coup by selecting a standard-bearer who is not the preferred candidate of wealthy donors and elected officials.At the heart of the division are different policy preferences. NYT continues:
And many of those traditional power brokers, in turn, are deeply uncomfortable and even hostile to Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz: Between them, the leading candidates do not have the backing of a single senator or governor.
The issues animating grass-roots voters — opposition to immigration, worries about wages and discomfort with America’s fast-changing demographics — are diverging from and at times colliding with the Republican establishment’s interests in free trade, lower taxes, less regulation and openness to immigration.In an era of tribal politics, it isn't clear where the GOP elites will find a political home. Neither party's base wants exactly what they want. Do they become Dems and put up with higher taxes and more regulation, or stay in the GOP and live with immigration restrictions and trade restrictions?
In a European-style parliamentary setting they'd form their own party and try to become a coalition partner. Within recent memory, the last time that tactic worked here was when the Southern Democrats allied with the GOP in Congress. And that partnership lasted only briefly.
The elites' problem: they truly are only 1% of the electorate. At one time, their immense wealth enabled them to buy influence far beyond their numbers via political advertising.
In today's fractured advertising market their great wealth doesn't give them the leverage it did when everyone watched 3 or 4 network channels. Today many voters have "cut the cable" or fast forward through the ads on their VCR, or watch commercial-free on-demand TV off the Internet.
