I could go on at length about this, but will try to be brief and hope to be understood. Too bad about the forthcoming flamewar.
So basically, the GOP created the Tea Party shortly after Barack Obama's election as President. Essentially, the Tea Party embodied a grass-roots version of the sort of ideologically pure conservatism begun by a group of conservatives whose political thinking had been inspired by Ronald Reagan's presidency during their formative years, and an intellectual rebellion against their Baby Boomer/New Left predecessors. The problem was that their message was too strongly geared towards true believers, elitist, and most favorable to the wealthiest members of society. So instead, they crafted a new message based primarily on animosity toward Obama (for various reasons) and the fact that a lot of people were desperate and angry during the depths of the Great Recession. This was wildly successful. In the next election after Obama, the entire incumbent County Council of a county neighboring mine was replaced by avowed Tea Partiers, and the US Congress switched to majority GOP from majority Democrat.
What the GOP didn't anticipate (or maybe they did, but that's a different and more paranoid interpretation of recent events) was Donald Trump. Trump, so far as I can tell, basically just wanted to be President (granted he may have honorable reasons for this) and mounted a successful campaign. The thing is, his campaign succeeded largely because of how well his base had been energized over the previous two administrations, by the Tea Party. However, what he promised as a candidate was what rank-and-file Tea Party adherents actually want - not the elitist society hoped for by the Tea Party's originators.
Now I see "traditional" Republicans openly express lack of support for Trump. What made me think of this today was the news that Darrell Issa doesn't want Jeff Sessions responsible for the investigation of alleged ties of the Trump campaign to Russia. Given that such an investigation could jeopardize Trump's legitimacy as President, this is a telling development (or one small part of a larger long-term plan, but paranoia).
I can't help think that the GOP may wish it had done some things a bit differently over the last several years. Or at least I hope it's that simple.