When I say "gave up on fiscal issues" I'm talking about the Republican party giving up on arguing for them on their merits. The whole point of the Southern Strategy was to dark horse the economic agenda the rich Republicans wanted by getting the poor Republicans to vote against their own self-interest. Same with "Death taxes." Same with charter schools. Same with trickle-down economics. Perhaps that's our misunderstanding: all of these social positions are gambits to get the poor to vote for shit that does them harm, they aren't some bizarre abandonment of core Republican principles.

Regardless of whether you understand the issues or not, the fact of the matter remains I've given you chapter and verse facts statistics and quotes and you've produced nothing. Wishing that I haven't validated my argument doesn't make it so, and asserting that you've done otherwise doesn't prove your point. I absolutely can say "the Republican base votes against their interests" and then demonstrate a pattern of social issues used by the Republicans to build party affinity amongst people who don't benefit at all from the fiscal platform. That's the nature of debate. That's logos rhetoric. That's how we do it. Somehow insinuating that empirical data... isn't only shows that you don't understand debate.