“It wasn’t something that was an important issue for President Trump, and so many of our base voters align themselves with President Trump. It’s almost like now debt, deficits, spending become abstract issues that a lot of folks aren’t paying attention to and should be,” he said.
There was a “political evolution,” Thune said, and the fiscal conservatism that was a core tenet of the Tea Party “got displaced … by the more populist elements” of the Republican Party.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/550074-gop-worries-fiscal-conservatism-losing-its-rallying-cry
