When all you have is a bag of farts to defend yourself with, you have to back those up with real bullshit in order to make a point. This is the current state of affairs that the GOP leadership finds itself in, having to appease both their wealthy benefactors and their working class voters of whom are in direct opposition to each other when fighting for a bigger piece of the American pie.
Yet the party elders have managed to befuddle and domesticate their commoners into a class of pliable obedient serfs, convinced that issues like abortion, gays, guns and being protectionist isolationists is somehow much more of a priority than better wages, benefits, affordable medical care and wider opportunities for being educated, things that positively improves the lives of all Americans. It seems their rank and file members have been convinced by their party apparatchiks that those desirable goals are only meant for some Americans (themselves) and not for "those others" who for some contrived reason or another don't deserve those very same things.