It's radical, but it's not new. This has been the conservative MO for a long time. They used to really like pork, like Ted Stevens' bridge to nowhere, but they were violently opposed to the New Deal, etc.
And their voters eat it up because it's "us against them" and punishment politics.
I don't think I got the name exactly right, but I just read a study that people will vote against their own interest if they can punish their perceived out group. Punishment is more motivating. Monkeys, man.
