no, he won by bringing them to heel and and changing the leader/partner dynamic. The Lindsay Grahams and Mitch McConnells of the world have been awfully fucking useful to him if you ask me.

so then centrists are not, in fact, necessary and essential to winning elections and exercising political power in America.

Do you really not think there’s any centrist republicans? Do you not think Trump worked to court right leaning centrists and independents in the election? One of Trumps enduring political strengths is his only real ideology is loyalty to him. He doesn’t actually give a fuck what else they believe

you severely overestimate the amount of true centrist voters. Most Americans who *think* they're centrists are actually center-right and not just right-of-center

sure. from our perspective. but the most egregious overestimation here, the one that is the root of the fucking problem, is how many people *think* what they believe is just so fucking great and true and universal all they have to do is silence and/or remove the haters and everything will be cool.