How do you mean? I'm not saying I disagree with you- I'd just love to hear your thoughts.
Well, instead I'll give you a stylized parable.
Once upon a time, let's say in the 19th century, Western politics had essentially two poles: Labor and Capital. In the US there was also regional conflict but by 1900 that had become less important. And thus did the politics organize accordingly. "Left" politicians (who were not known as liberals at the time) were basically supposed to stand up for workers' rights; "Right" politicians were supposed to stand up for capital. As both were necessary for a functioning economy, there were serious ideas in both ways. Laborers rightly wanted not to be exploited and treated as disposable; capital rightly wanted to build production facilities to mass produce goods.
But in the modern world, there are a lot more claimants on both politics and capital. Politics has to answer to a desegregated voting population, with voter blocs resentful of continuing oppression. Capital has to accommodate 20th century concerns like environmental conservation, antitrust laws, financial transparency, etc. Suddenly, building factories wasn't a good enough answer. Conservatives had to offer more than just laissez-faire, and the Depression showed what would happen to them politically if they failed.
But what can capital actually suggest on these topics? In large measure, 20th century politics was about using law to make corporations do stuff they don't really want to do. That's the regulatory state. And on these topics, there's not really a middle ground. Capital does not want securities laws, period. It doesn't have a different way of implementing them; "conservative" ideas on these regulatory state issues were generally proposals to do some fraction of the job the public wanted done (one result being all the carveouts in laws and regulations). They would say, "we're proposing to do the most important stuff" and there's a certain logic to that; the overregulation of benzene is a famous example of doing way more than the important stuff. But in general, politics was about the people telling capital what they wanted it to do, and capital trying to do as little of it as possible.
But half-assery is not a promising political identity. And that's one reason that the Dems started cleaning the GOP's clock in the 1960s, even with the war sabotaging the Dems' efforts. The GOP realized it had to snare the disaffected racists to survive. Unfortunately for the GOP, the disaffected racists were even less fond of capital's policies than the overall population -- due to suspicion of jews and bankers etc. So the coalition was hard to maintain, until the GOP found its solution:
Just lie.
Conservatives learned that if you threw out racist red meat, it didn't really matter that their ideas about "fair labor" consisted of little more than union-busting. That they were wrecking natural resources with opposition to every anti-pollution law around. So on and so forth. And thus did the GOP policy positions increasingly fetishize the appearance of myth over substance. We think of Trump ranting about shower heads as a MAGA thing, but it's not. Back in Obama's term, GOPers whined about losing their precious incandescent light bulbs. And so did the GOP start sucking its own propaganda teats.
Cap-and-trade was invented by center-rightists in the 1980s. It was Bush 41 who signed the system into law. Liberals quickly embraced it because it really worked. It was probably the most effective piece of regulatory technology, so to speak, of the late 20th century. It was also the last good idea that the GOP ever had on the environment. It was just so much easier to lie.
