https:/www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/03/28/this-one-anecdote-perfectly-explains-how-donald-trump-is-hijacking-the-gop
…Trump is succeeding in part because he’s offering economically struggling GOP voters something more than the promise that free markets and limited government contain the keys to their economic salvation.
…As the Times piece reports, Republicans are realizing that the GOP elite donor agenda can no longer be sold to GOP voters…
…Last March, GOP lawmakers met privately to figure out how to sell the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which GOP elites support, to Republican voters who were suspicious of it:
… For help, the lawmakers turned to Frank Luntz
… Few issues were now as dangerous to them as trade, Mr. Luntz told the lawmakers… Many Americans did not believe that the economic benefits of trade deals trickled down to their neighborhoods. They did not care if free trade provided them with cheaper socks and cellphones. Most believed free trade benefited other countries, not their own.
… “I told them to stop calling it free trade, and start calling it American trade,” Mr. Luntz said in an interview. “American businesses, American services — American, American, American!”
… But GOP voters don’t appear to believe this messaging any longer, if they ever did…
… Not even clever Luntzian messaging may be able to bail them out this time. Trump is peddling a scam, but at least it’s a new scam.”