Yes, people absolutely should judge the Republican party by their CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT who virtually every republican holding a political office has endorsed, made excuses for, or at the very least least watched in silence as he repeatedly violated the law, the constitution, and tried to destroy our democracy. Republicans have had 8 years now to disavow him and they did not. Only now have a few rats started to flee from what they see is a sinking ship.

The republican party is the Trump Party.

It really does feel like Trump is in "nothing to lose" mode and is telling some of his most ridiculous lies yet. The way they're attacking that Arlington groundskeeper for doing her duty is particularly sick.

Hadn't heard about the cannibalism, though. ;)

Except it isn't one person. 

Republicans watch news that is very in line with Trump. I've seen family members that watch OAN, and they say stuff that's exactly as absurd as Trump. Fox News, Breitbart. 

Guys like Andrew Tate, Elon Musk. 

The special interests/extreme part of the party has been spent decades trying to convince the public that climate change isn't real, that Republicans are small government, that we need to reduce taxes and regulations - always in ways that exclusively benefit the rich and not in ways that benefit common people, that Democrats are baby killers, science isn't real, and the million other things. Complaining about "DEI", etc. 

Trump isn't the problem, he's simply part of the pattern of decades of disinformation. 

Hopefully enough Republicans are starting to wake up and reject a lot of this extreme nonsense.

But I think there's a big issue here, that you have this idea of what the Republican party is. These political parties are not static things. They're only the positions they support.

The Republican Party isn't whatever ideal that you have of them. 

Republicans have overwhelmingly supported Trump, even when most of the politicians have not appreciated how open he was about their positions. That is what the Republican Party stands for right now. Until they start pushing back against the very politicians they've voted for like MTG, Boebert, Trump, etc.

The problem is when you've been creating this reality, that you are right about everything, and everything opposed to that reality is a lie or evil, then you have to do what's "right" to you. 

Rejecting the reality that has been created for you, is hard. It's a lot easier to convince people that the elections are being stolen, the Democrats are bad corrupt people than it is to admit that your reality is wrong.  

It's a lot easier if you literally believe that abortion means "child killing".

Haha whoops, cannabis.

Pi-guy: "Except it isn't one person"

Yes, it is that simple.  One person leads a political party here in the USA. Kamala leads the Demos and Trump leads the Repubs.

Of course, in 2028, there could be new leaders.

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As far as their followers go, yeah, they watch shit ass news feeds.

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Also, Trump is the problem. He has divided the Repub party more than any other candidate, as the saying goes: United we stand, divided we fall.

No they don't. People pick who "leads" the political party. He won all 3 of his primaries pretty handily. 

Trump is a big idiot, but he's largely saying a lot of things that Republicans have been advocating for, well before he came onto the national stage.

Has Trump actually divided the Republican party more than any other candidate? Based on what metric? 

During the 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020 elections, Republicans have gotten a pretty consistent share of the popular vote. 

"No they don't. People pick who "leads" the political party. He won all 3 of his primaries pretty handily. "

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It looks like you misunderstood me. Of course the voters pick their leader. And Trump has won the last 3 Repub NOMINATIONS (not primaries).

In my opinion, and with nothing tangible to back it up, because I don't give a shit to waste my time looking it up on the internet.....

Trump has divided the Repub party more than any other candidate in recent memory....Nixon was the last.

If Trump loses again then the only path forward for a Republican win would be Hikki Haley, Imo. Trump is one of those once in a while cult personalities, yeah a lot are voting because they want to rip away women's rights and all that but a lot are voting because of the "personality" too. Ron DeSantis? JD Vance? Ted Cruz? Don Jr? All these dudes have nowhere near the level of cult following as Trump does, they have absolutely zero charisma, they're boring as fuck even to MAGA. They can't just co-opt the MAGA brand and let that carry them.

There's a chance they wheel out Trump at 82, a three time loser, I seriously doubt that will work if he loses for the 2nd time though, especially at that age when he's already showing mental decline. Either way, Harris needs to win first, Americans don't get complacent, this will be an incredibly and disgustingly close election, mostly due to the electoral college, if it was based on popular vote then I think Harris would comfortably win but I won't be comfortable until after the election.

2028 is going to be interesting because you will definitely have factions within the party battling it out over whether or not to double down on or turn away from Trumpism.

Haley could be a formidable opponent if the Republican Party rallies around her but I could also see a scenario where Trump endorses some bone head like Vance, Don Jr or Vivek and after she beats them in the primaries, he tells his loyalists not to vote for her.

Haley is too much of a flip-flopper. She has no principles, she just licks a finger and sees which side of it gets cool first.