To demonstrate how completely the Republican party has become unmoored from its Conservative anchorings, consider how strongly they campaigned against a candidate who embodied traditional Republican memes of marital fidelity, self-reliance, strong Christian faith, the capacity for effective executive management and organizational skills that would be prized in the private sector, the ability to articulate and sell his ideas in meritocracy of the electoral marketplace, and the emphasizing of self-improvement, accumulation of knowledge and the importance of higher education in that process.
Let's also not forget that mainstream Conservative thinking once placed a premium on knowledge of the Constitution, and would have been elated to have elected a president who was also a Constitutional scholar.