supporters. People who are in such a panic state, believing their very identity is under threat by growing racial and ethnic diversity, aren’t going to be interested in people who they see as accepting change as inevitable (even if they promise to slow it down). They want to hear that it can be stopped, even reversed. And Trump is making that promise.
This entire situation is also a nice reminder that the politics of coalition-building, as frustrating and contentious as they can be at times, have benefits over the multi-decade conservative effort to use propaganda to create a singular, lockstep coalition. Democrats work by bringing people with different issues together, settling differences through compromise and often tedious amounts of discussion. For decades now, the right has gone a different route: Using talk radio, conservative publications and Fox News to create a singular conservative identity and persuading people in the coalition to adjust themselves to it.
As long as immigration is a salient issue to conservatives, Trump is going to do well. He can convincingly portray himself as the most conservative on this issue, bringing a huge chunk of voters with him. The only way to combat that is to find some other enticing issue that a candidates is most conservative on, and distract voters with that. Carson was able to pull that off for awhile, but the immigration issue has surged to the front again because of the Paris attacks.
The Republican noise machine has been incredibly successful in building a powerful movement that moves in lockstep. But [insert your Frankenstein metaphor here]. There’s no real incentive for the Fox News and Rush Limbaughs of the world to dial it down. Lockstep conservatism is straight up good for ratings. But it increasingly looks bad for the Republican Party."
Republicans have spent several decades building a "singular, lockstep coalition". For the near future it looks very powerful. "But it increasingly looks bad for the Republican Party" longer term - over 'several decades'. The "bad for the Republican Party" cannot come soon enough.
Great article, MrScorpio. 
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