The Republican Party is faced with an insoluble dilemma

Trump’s approval rating is now around 34%, and 63% of voters disapprove of him. 80% of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance, but only 4% of Democrats and 30% of independents do. And only 40% of Republicans want him to run again in 2024. (Compilation from the latest Gallup and Politico/Morning Consult polls.)

But the 80% figure is significant, and these MAGA voters are not going away. It is hard to see this as anything but an insoluble problem for the GQP. 1/6

The GQP leadership might be thinking that the voting intensity of the MAGA right is greater than the voting intensity of non- and even anti-MAGA voters opposed to them, so the party can win by presenting two quite different faces to the world, 2/6

GOP eyes path to power by making peace with the far rightNEW YORK (AP) — Over the course of 24 hours this week, House Republicans voted to defend a freshman conspiracy theorist with a history of violent rhetoric and a mainstream party leader who backed…https://tinyurl.com/y3xfna3e

but voters understand that one faction in a party is going to prevail over the other eventually, and it is clear now that the winning faction on the right is going to be the MAGA crazies. 3/6

Clearly, the Trump-MAGA wing is determined to maintain its dominance in the party, and Trump himself isn’t going to let up either. 4/6

Trump is plotting a campaign revenge tour targeting GOP defectors after Senate impeachment trialFormer President Donald Trump is carefully plotting his return in public, discussing plans to campaign against House and Senate Republicans https://tinyurl.com/yxrpvf2w

Furthermore, the optimists in the GQP overlook the fact that Trump-MAGA doesn’t have a broader political agenda that appeals to voters either.

(In 2020, the party didn’t even have a platform. For the GOP, it was *only* about getting Trump re-elected.) 5/6

This is not a formula for surviving as a political party.

A party can’t expect to win elections if it is widely perceived to be a cult of an almost uniquely repugnant and destructive political figure, and if it doesn’t have a policy agenda that can be sold to voters either. 6/6