Conservative insiders say Republicans aren’t scared of Trump now — they’re scared of his supporters

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. “People like Alex Jones had always had millions of listeners and followers, but Trump brought them into the big tent, and started listening to them,” he said, adding that Trump tapped into a Republican conspiratorial underbelly that had been present since the mid-20th century, but had always been kept at arm’s length by previous GOP presidents. “The inmates have gradually taken over the asylum, and now they're running the place and the guy who opened the last cell door lock — Trump — can’t do anything about them,” he said. “It's hard for them to put this back in the bottle — it’s like they have fully opened Pandora's box.” Another conservative media veteran, Illinois Tea Party Congressman-turned-radio host Joe Walsh, said the rush by Trump supporters to abandon Fox and his former colleagues’ reluctance to acknowledge the reality of Trump’s democratic loss shows something important: Republican politicians’ silence in the face of Trump’s abuses of power was less about fear of mean tweets than fear of the electorate. That's a very intoxicating approach to politics, and we're reaping the results where a lot of people actually believe Donald Trump has won the election, even though he clearly didn’t.” Sheffield — who cut his teeth in the conservative movement and its accompanying ecosystem before abandoning it for mainstream journalism — said it’s not just political leaders who need to bring the right back to reality.