4.) While Trump is a very flawed candidate, he still has more appeal to a large portion of the electorate than the Republican Party, whose leaders are desperate to prevent the party's obvious shift away from Reaganism to Buchananism and a more working-class-oriented, isolationist, and anti-'globalist' message. The former remains unappealing even to a lot of voters who Trump gained in 2016 and 2020; hence another reason (besides "lower turnout") for the Republican failure to replicate or expand Trump's gains with those demographics in 2022. Trump at least has the right direction and the image of a strong leader, offering some sense of certainty to people.
The irony is that Trump once called Pat Buchanan a "Hitler lover".
