That’s true, but they’ll also have the same take away if the GOP somehow wins
“Our controlling influence over the excesses of the populists saved us from disaster” or some such nonsense
That’s because neoconservatism is the telos of the establishment GOP
You still shouldn’t do something stupid like vote for people who want you dead, but don’t think this will stop the establishment from spinning the same narrative
Mark my words, if Republicans get wiped out on Tuesday, the lesson the GOP donor, consultant, and political class will learn from this election cycle is not that they need to become more aggressive on immigration, more nationalistic, more populist, more Right-wing, or more based and red-pilled.
Quite the opposite.
They're going to walk away from the midterms thinking they need to expel all the chuds, gatekeep against their own Right flank, and revert the GOP back to the thinly veiled controlled opposition status it occupied back in the early 2010s.
The party apparatchiks will invent some new buzzword or phrase that ultimately amounts to "diet gay race communism" while making it sound like they're political realists seeking to rebuild after an electoral wipeout.
And they will call it a restoration of conservatism as they do it.