Take this howler of a quote from Keith Self, R-TX:
Bro, I hate to break it to you but most people don't know who Jim Jordan is*. If I polled twenty people at random at the corner bar, ten would probably answer "Uh... Michael Jordan's dad?"
Of the ten who did know who he was, five would think he was a seditious loon, three would think he was "okay, I guess, because at least he's a Republican?" and two would sound like this:
When you've got thoroughly gerrymandered districts that vote R +30 or D +20 in general elections, then the primary challenge becomes the biggest threat, and the people who turn out to vote in primaries skew heavily toward the Lady In The Video demographic.
Which is why we get inane purity spirals. If you wanna keep doing cool Congressperson stuff in DC, where there are cigar bars and sushi joints, you gotta constantly defend your Right flank or risk having to go back to your day job in rural Nebraska chasing ambulances or selling insurance or whatever.
*And why should they? He's a Representative from Ohio, FFS. I'll give someone an A in Civics if they know the names of their own Representative and the Speaker of the House. They'll get an A+ if they know their whole state's House delegation, especially if it's more than five or six reps. I'll bet you can't name your whole state's House delegation. I think I can only name three or four of Indiana's nine.
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