… Trump had already revealed the vulnerability of both the Republican Party and the conservative movement, institutions that together claimed the presidency in seven of the ten elections between 1968 and 2004.
He has reconvened the largely passive “silent majority” — the Reagan Democrats and the angry white men of past elections — and turned it into a renegade force that has rebelled against its marginal status in the Republican coalition.
How the Republican Party deals with this insurgency will define much of American political life this year, on into 2018 and 2020. CONT.
Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times