Matthew Yglesias nails it for Vox:

Republicans are mostly a party of cultural grievance-mongers, not ambitious legislators. That’s why Donald Trump is their president. That’s why they don’t seem to notice or care that Paul Ryan is a total fraud.

…

As far as policy goes, passing unpopular bills is not a great way to be popular. More to the point, every single House Republicans knows perfectly well that they didn’t campaign in 2016 on the promise of some wonky tax reform plan. The campaign was about how Hillary Clinton was a she-devil whose email server was going to get us all killed by Barack Obama’s buddies from ISIS. The chant at the rallies was “lock her up!” not “allow multinational companies to repatriate foreign profits tax free!”

Trump’s there in the West Wing, day after day, talking about how troops and cops are good and Black Lives Don’t Matter and immigrants are terrible (except the good ones) and we’re gonna say Merry Christmas and not be such sensitive snowflakes and celebrate our Confederate generals like all good patriots do. That’s what the party’s all about.

Governing is like thinking. It’s hard. And as the GOP keeps showing us, it’s way easier not to do it.