All of our bizarre political problems here basically stem from Republicans knowing that their numbers are shrinking and elections are so close much of the time that they can barely afford to lose a single vote. This put them in severe panic mode. The thing Trump did for them was to solidify a voting block of people that were intensely loyal. The problem is, he did not actually secure that block for them, he secured it for him. He created a monster for the party by creating a MAGA/Trump set of voters that will follow him wherever he goes. It is not the 74 million that voted for him in 2020, but they do number in the millions and that number is way too high for them to lose this block. So, they have stupidly found no way to hold onto those voters except for pledging allegiance to Trump. If they want to win an election, they believe they have to appeal to the MAGA voters.
This is not actually true. In the short term there may be some validity to it, but not long term. Unfortunately for all of us, elected Republicans think only in the short term. I believe that the strategy for them is, and has always been, to ride out the MAGA insanity. Let Trump die off and when he does, without their leader, the movement will collapse. It's a pretty poor strategy and in the interim, they are allowing the party to go batshit crazy trying to destroy the pillars that hold this country up. I think some of these people want to see if they can actually destroy our institutions and then they can openly rape and pillage the country.
My feeling is more people are against that idea than for it, but greed and power are too hard for some of these people to resist. As we are immediately seeing, a guy like Jim Jordan is going to abuse his powers without hesitation. If a Democrat tried to interfere with a state investigation of a Democrat politician, the Republicans would go insane and immediately label it criminal and a violation of state's rights. Jordan does it, on the instruction of the lawyers of the Republican being investigated...and hilariously...there is not a peep out of Republicans about how F-ed up that is. Crickets.
The Trump problem is double edged though, because you can't win with him, his presence costs you elections, and they can't win without his voters because they will only pledge loyalty to Trump, not to them or the country.
This is why the Republican party seems to be acting against their own interests and seemingly working to either destroy themselves, or destroy democracy and move to a new form of government.
They could take the route of trying to rebuild the party, but to do so, they would have to admit Trump was a massive mistake and be willing to take some short-term losses. They so far, seem unwilling to do either of those things. So, they will plow forward with Trump, some of them likely just praying he drops dead, and they will lose with him until he is gone.
Even Pat seems to grasp this as he ended up saying DeSantis was the way to go. The problem for DeSantis and all these other Republican Trump wannabes is that they do not have whatever it is that Trump has to appeal to his voters and win over the cult. And while Trump is alive, he will never do what would have been normal behavior and turn his voters over to the party. Nope, he holds them as his, only his, and instead he will destroy the party rather than help them win. The Republican primary of 2024 is going to be the most insane shitshow this country has ever seen if Trump is involved. And right now, he looks like he will be right at the top of it.
I think all of this, leaves Republicans in a no-win position. While MAGA goons would be fine with this, the brighter people in the Republican party are not going to enjoy this. The issue there is, the brighter people in the Republican party seem not to be in control of it. The idiots, Trump, Greene, Jordan, Gaetz, Gosar, etc, are currently calling the shots.
