Trump was running populist candidates. The only other Republican candidate you would get aside from that are Rinos. Rinos winning is almost like voting in a Democrat. Its pointless.
I don't think thats nessarly fair.
The problem right now for both parties is that their self image of themselves is fundamentally wrong.
The republican party at least its leadership thinks of themselves as the establishment as the people who are perserving the system but the fact is. That's wrong, its in fact utterly delusional. The universities, media, and most of the buracracy is in the hands of the left. They simply do not have the insitutional power or cultural power to be an actual establishment.
Their lying to themselves and have been for decades fact is the american conservative movement has been effectively an semi insurgency since FDR. They are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of the republican party being the populist party because it pretty much breaks all the self delusions about their place in the world and that place is not very comforable.
For the democrats well they see themselves as the populist movement the vangaurd of the revolution but lets face facts, when your getting corperate sponsorship, when your able to silence your enemies with an alliance with big tech. When you fucking dominate the culutral insitutions and are able to get your enemies de banked for wrong think.
Your not the plucky rebels your the empire, their the establishment.
Thing is being an establishment party isn't nessarly a bad thing but there are rules to being one, you cant do crazy shit, you have to provide stability. Your not fighting against the man you are the man and you have fucking responsibilities. The democrats are deeply, deeply, deeply hate filled against the Maga crowd because they see them in a very fundamental sense as usurping their role.
Meanwhile because of their self delusions their running their insitutions into the fucking ground because of their mismanagement.
The problem for both parties is that they were prepared to play a certain role only to have the reality on the ground be the exact opasit to all of their preconceptions.