The Republican establishment has an interesting thesis which is in 2016, we just had too many people in the primary and that is why Donald Trump won. I don't agree with this. My read is that what the 2016 primary show is that the party elites are far more limited in their sway over the Republican voters than was generally believed. That there were in fact many attacks on Donald Trump. There was a lot of criticism about Donald Trump. Fox News at various points tried to criticize Trump harshly and to convince his viewers that he was not a reliable Republican. But it didn't work. Their viewers loved him and eventually they changed their coverage to avoid alienating their viewers.