From Green Eagle:
This is just something I have been thinking about. I can’t say I have much confidence in its validity, but it makes sense to me today, so I will just shoot my mouth off about it.
The Republican party, for about a hundred years (Let’s say from the time of Taft or Teddy Roosevelt up until the Bushes) was really dominated by a few very rich families. Either their choices, or their actual relatives, were the ruling members of the party, and its selections for high office. That worked out pretty well, although a couple of low-class outsiders like Nixon and Reagan managed to weasel their way into the White House, but by the 21st century, the party had sort of run out of traditional families like that. The last sort of mainline old style Conservative to run for President was McCain, the son of a right wing admiral; after that, the party was out of ammo, as witnessed by the endless run of charlatans who have sought their Presidential nomination since then. So, the Republicans seem to have adopted what I call the “artillery strategy.”