There are people like the Project 2025 folks for who Trump is a useful idiot, a means to their end. They won't go away when Trump does, but it will remain to be seen how many there will be and how much support they'll have. Then there are the politicians in the former GOP who need Trump and his base to remain in power. If Trump is out of the picture and another sane, conservative leader takes the reins, they'll probably go with them. And that leaves the true crazies, the cultists, who will never disappear. Again, what happens will depend on their numbers and strength. But no, I don't believe we'll ever return to the old status quo.
Yeah, unfortunately too many of the crazies are in positions of power. They aren't going to let go and too much of the base has been fed crazy and loves it. My memory is that the polls indicate about 40% of Republicans are basically Trump cultists. Even saying cults of personalities have difficulties replacing their leaders, this is the Tea Party on steroids and they'll be able to determine the leaders for a while. We could even see that with the Tea Party pre-Trump and this is bigger.
It's a shame Ret. Judge Luttig isn't a little younger. The repubs need someone like him to take the wheel and instill some respect/values/decency/common sense/anti-criminality/wisdom/kindness/etc in the party.
This has been a long time coming in the Republican party, like I mean I wouldn't associate any of those properties with the likes of Gingrich, Hastert, etc ... and even Saint Reagan well wasn't so saintly if you were gay, black, or working class. And then Nixon hangs like a pall over everything (and not just on the perversion of justice level, the Southern strategy as well) though even he
might blush at Trump (and was certainly as President better at the job and even helped/tried to help others - though again the Southern strategy undercut a lot of that). And anti-democracy voter suppression has long been a staple of Republican policy. However, it does say something though that the likes of George Will and Dick Cheney endorse Harris/Walz. If even they recognize the crazy has gotten out of hand ... but I don't know how much of a nucleus can be formed around the conservatives abandoning Trump. After all, given the apparent tightness in the polls, it hasn't had much of an effect.
I recognize that conservative views need a voice in America and I'd like that voice to be sane. But I'm not going to hope for much more than that and I think only burning the Grand Old Party down and getting a new one has any hope of getting even that and that hope is slim for the foreseeable future. That's not just me saying that, some former Republican never Trumpers are the ones saying that the Republican party needs to be destroyed as a going concern the loudest (Tom Nichols comes to mind).
As soon as I'm done donating I STOP texts and unsubscribe from all emails. Then, the next time I choose to donate I do it again. I never get spammed as a result and get to choose how and when I donate that way.
At the very least it doesn't have any punch, really Trump is a victim of his own policies by giving every whackjob out there free and easy access to these weapons. Even then those buying them clearly can't use them, turns out they're way more successful at shooting up a bunch of kids in a school than assassinating a president.
Also limiting the effect of these attempts is the callousness which they have shown others, including children, being shot and killed, "just get used to it", and of course their own demonization of people to the point of inflicting terror on immigrant communities.