Frank Luntz—a conservative pollster, pundit, and 2010 Lie of the Year winner—has worked to define Republican causes and talking points for decades now.
So he was understandably baffled with a recent poll indicating a stark reversal from a defining principle of the Republican party.
Luntz responded to a recent YouGov poll regarding the current dispute between the nation's governors and President Donald Trump.
Governors across the country implemented stay-at-home orders to curb the virus that's caused a national health crisis in the United States from spreading. Trump, eager to begin touting the economy in favor of his reelection, is chomping at the bit to see these orders scaled back.
Trump falsely insisted that he has "total" authority to scale back these orders himself.
Predictably eager to fall in line with whatever the President says, a majority of Republicans agreed that federal powers supersede state powers.
Of all voting groups, Republicans are the only ones who believe Trump's power supercedes that of governors with it comes to loosening stay at home orders.
And Luntz was at a loss.
As Luntz mentions, a mainstay of the Republican party platform has been the sanctity of states' rights. The conservative invocation of states' rights has been used to stall everything from same-sex marriage to gun control to voting rights.
People pointed out that Luntz has spent his career helping the party get to this point of blind devotion to an executive, instead of the principles upon which the party has traditionally been based.
The Republican Party's platform is far more streamlined now: whatever Trump says goes.
Maybe Republican politicos should begin addressing the elephant in the room—and in the White House—before feigning ignorance at how we got here.
For a look into how the Republican party became the party of Trump, check out It Was All a Lie, available here.
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