Reagan’s success was convincing the Democrats to under-correct and fully buy-into trickle-down neoliberalism for decades. That way, when people get fed up with it, a Republican gets to claim to be a third option against all those mainstream globalists who’s going to bring jobs back to America. The marks don’t recognize it was the Republican’s who started it in the first place.
Exactly, never assume silence is because they have changed their minds. They only just discovered it doesn’t play well in polling and are avoiding the topic. Unless they actively say they have changed their mind, they haven’t (and even then be skeptical). Ontario learned this the hard way several times in a row.