Welcome Alan Pearson.
If the GOP wants into the crowed political populism market, fine. But to what point? The donors of the Tory party in any democracy have one bedrock concern: taxes. Most of the taxes are paid by well-off people. I think that's perfectly fair. But there's got to be some limit to it, the keep the operation going. Nobody knows exactly where the sweet spot is.
My point here is that constant push-back on taxes is the GOP's reason for being. And populism in that context argues with itself. If your purpose is to harass homosexuals (Cruz et al) you can sign up a lot of meanies in fly-over territory. But you won't get a lot of fervor behind cutting the capital gains tax.