George Will: The GOP Lout Club

Prominent Lout Club Members Ted Cruz and Matt Gaetz

Conservative pundit George Will recently opined: 

Will the Senate Republicans allow their louts to rule the party? 

He writes about an emerging Lout club of Trump sycophants campaigning to be Trump's biggest mini-me.

...there appeared a new aspirant for membership in the Republican senators’ large Lout Caucus: Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Tex.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), et al.

He warns about the existential danger these louts present to the GOP (and by extension country):

Today’s two major parties have framed political competition since the middle of the 19th century — since the Republicans rose from the rubble of the Whigs. An essential conservative insight about everything is that nothing necessarily endures. Care must be taken. The Republican Party will wither if the ascendant Lout Caucus is the face it presents to this nation of decent, congenial people.

Ok, let's be honest and keep it real. Trumpism didn't start with Trump:

The seeds of Trumpism were being sowed as early as Nixon/Reagan using the Southern Strategy (racism, anti-immigrant, nativism, etc) and wedge issues (abortion, guns, god, etc) to get white middle and working-class citizens to support economic and social policies that favored the wealthy elite.

Add the right-wing media industry to the mix (Fox, Limbaugh, and the gang) and the soil became extremely fertile for an authoritarian demagogue like The Donald.

In a nutshell:

Conservatives like George Will have conveniently looked away while the GOP has played with fire (inflaming the emotions of their base by using lies and distortions) for decades and now he is "shocked to find there is gambling going on in here."