From listening to mainstream #conservative commentators I get the impression that core #Republican voters are very insular, an enormous echo chamber that doesn't recognize the positions of even Republican leaning independents in the country.
This is interesting because it's one thing for a small group or faction of a movement to be an echo chamber, but this seems to be basically an entire major political party buying into confirmation bias.
The midterm elections and then yesterday's VA election highlighted this, as Republicans were excitedly predicting a sweep, that they told themselves was coming, that didn't come.
The implications for the presidential primary process are significant, as the primary process exists to overcome the wasted ballots of the voting system, but that doesn't work if a party is so disconnected from the larger voting population.