Trump caught them by surprise in 16 because he took away [their] most used weapon, the media. He broke all convention, labeled them fake news and exposed them for the propaganda arm of the deep state that they are.
There's still plenty of people that don't care about substance though, and are deranged over Trump's style. So, here we have a new republican party that's broken off from the uni-party media collusion, and has to do the same thing Trump started but more mindful of the tone police. JD Vance has looked really well-prepared in this strategy, sounds like Scott understood the assignment.