>

It's almost entirely the undeniable decline in the standard of living among a large chunk of the white population who were offered no panacea, unlike other groups who have seen an undeniable decline in the standard of living and offered meaningless fake solutions. 
Trump wasn't trying to hold on to anything, his selling point was that the system is broken and needs to be torn down.
You have to win the primary before you can win the general.
If you look at the Republican races the last year, you'll notice some candidates that would have had an easier time with the general election lost in the primaries.
To win the primary, you need to get press coverage.
Culture War content generates lots of press coverage.
I think many people are missing that Trump is still polling at around 50% with Republicans and right now it looks like the field could end up being somewhat crowded which could easily hand the primary to Trump if the rival campaigns can't draw sufficient attention to themselves to be competitive early on. >

Trump won the crowded 2016  primaries hovering around 30% so 50% in an equally crowded field isnt bad >

Maybe?
It worked for DeSantis, but most of the nominees that ran for races on those issues, such as Tudor Dixon and Mastriano, lost. 
It’s worth noting that most of the Republican pickups, such as Kiggans or Kean, ran on economic issues.
Also, there might be a world where certain things that work on the state level don’t on the national level. People might be fine with DeSantis on a local level, but might not want him to say, sign a bill on a national abortion ban or have the ability to nominate another Supreme Court Justice. >

Elaine Lauria’s district was redrawn to include a much more rural area and she served on the January 6 committee. Kiggans was handed that win >

Yeah, Luria’s campaign is interesting in that it was the one most focused on January 6th. That obviously didn’t work in a place like Virginia where election denialism isn’t as big of a deal as it would be in Trump 16 - Biden 20 states. That’s probably why you saw Kemp and Raffensberger soar to reelection in Georgia while Lake and co fell apart in Arizona. 
I’m interested in seeing how some of the culture war nominees navigate that issue in the primary. I do see a world where they do better in safe red and blue states, but fall apart in purple states because they embrace it. >


It seems that potential GOP candidates are too focused on culture wars instead of economic issues which are more important to swing voters. However, it might also be tactic to win the GOP primary and then focus on economic issues in the general election.

We saw GOP politicians like Blake Masters promote absolute abortion bans in the primary and then pivoted to being more "moderate" with a 15 week ban plus exceptions for the general.
It didn't work out for most of them, but every GOP politician not named Trump will pivot hard to the right, say some insane stuff to try and win the nomination, and then if it works, pretend like they never said it and play to the middle in the general. >

I wonder if, when we look back at this period of time decades from now, we end up writing that the Trump effect was a temporary surge of pro-white culture wars fueled by the fresh image of having a powerful black President. And as we see a familiar normal white male face of Joe Biden in office, that Trump effect and the related culture wars doesn’t trigger as much. >

I personally think that’s part of it. But instead of it being just a response to Obama, it’s a response to massive social and economic changes happening exceptionally fast. 
A black president, marriage equality, drug legalization, shift from blue to white collar work, massive connectedness with social media. 
Stuff just happens faster now, and Trump was a gasping breath trying to hold onto the “good ole days”.