What would it take for the GOP to dump Trump?

[T'Chenka]

Trump joining ISIS might put a dent

I'm actually not sure...

[VBM]

Trump would need to say something bad about Trump

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

The Rs  may lose 22 anyways so if they do they aren't gonna need Trump ANYMORE after the Election

Expect the Rs if they don't win on EDay to move on from Trimp

[HisGrace]

Trump joining ISIS might put a dent

"Breaking Matt Gaetz converts to Islam"

[Dr. MB]

He dies

[pbrower2a]

After the August 8th raid, I am done with Trump. He is an albatross around the neck of the GOP and an millstone to the cause of national unity. He continues to show no humility or appreciation for the continued harm he is causing to the country, or that which he has done.

I am not even referring here to January 6th or even to whatever documents he was holding, I am referring to the deep and toxic divide in our nation. Think of:

All the ruined friendships / relationships he has caused

All the division in this country

All the violence (beyond Jan 6th) his rhetoric has caused

He has become beyond sad, it is an obscenity which I can no longer in good conscience support. He will only cause the destruction of the Republican Party as an effective political party. He is nothing but an immoral albatross whose only interest is himself, at this point

Even Nixon had the humility to accept when it was over, pack his bags, and get out. And he did so with Grace, and served his country for the remainder of his years honorably.

This man, whom I fervently supported in 2016 and 2020, he will not do that. He seems to utterly lack humility.

That being said, how can the rest of the GOP be made to wake up and see the same? Not just the voters, I mean the public figured that are circling the wagons around him.

1. he must die.



Except for Obama and Trump, former Presidents since  Theodore Roosevelt have steered clear of partisan politics. Perhaps with Obama, Trump proved such an abomination in every aspect of personal life and political style that he had to turn against him. No current President (until Biden, and understandably so) has held the previous President in so much contempt as did Donald Trump.

It is best for the Party that the Party that has just been removed from the White House not get stuck on a personality. Sure, Obama is likely a long-term model of how to be President barring perhaps a catastrophic war. (This said, Obama might have been precisely the one to lead America through such a calamity; he just was not so tested, so we can only guess).

The Party out of the White House needs to rebuild its strengths in the House and Senate if it is to be able to contest the Presidency again, and the previous President usually gets in the way.

2. He must bring about a catastrophic defeat for his Party.

Anything less than a return to a hold in the House is a defeat for the GOP in view of a long-standing pattern (2002 is a blatant exception) in which the Party in the White House loses a raft of House or Senate seats. There just aren't that many Senate seats that even started vulnerable for the Democrats.  The House is as gerrymandered in favor of Republicans as is possible, but should the electorate come to its senses about January 6 and the classified documents (the latter about as troublesome from a legal standpoint as a discovery of a dead body under suspicious circumstances) there will be plenty of Trump acolytes who go down to defeat. Ask me in three months about that.

3. The political culture must change. This is most likely demographic change. It could be as subtle as Presbyterians (heavily Scots-Irish) of the Mountain South going to the fundamentalist wing of the Southern Baptist Church in the 1970's. That alone was enough to wipe out Jimmy Carter in 1980, as those voters had been stalwart supporters of the Democratic Party as a reflection of the new Deal giving them the greatest improvement in their economic lives. I'm not saying that a religious shift is on the way.

Donald Trump betrayed his supporters in ways that few can imagine. He has gotten people to disgrace themselves or to do self-destructive things in his name. That is catastrophic leadership. Cult-like businesses may thrive in pure

But know well -- Donald Trump is a consequence of an atomized society in which people hardly know anyone else, and in which community is weak. He exploited a reality in which people had few ties to any people other than family and a political culture in which shock jocks like the late Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer had coarsened the level of public discourse.   

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

As said before a landslide loss in Midterms which will happen, the only reason why the Rs are in this because of Gerrymandering by this right wing Trump Crt ACB, GORSUCH and Kavanaugh have all gerrymderrd the districts which allowed Voter Suppression laws. So, the Rs think they are winning this by themselves no they're not the win 2016 election

KAVANAUGH GERRYMANDERING WI THATS THE ONLY REASON WHY JOHNSON IS IN THE GAME WITH BARNES OTHERWISE HE WOULD BE BLANCHE, THE LAST MQK POLL HAD IT 46/44 BARNES I AM GUESSING 47/43 BARNES AND 49/45 EVERS OVER MICHELS

Users on the R side said yeah this is a 2010/14 Eday no it's not Trump Approvals are the same as Bidens in Civiq polls that's why the Rs are behind in 303 states, Newsom is in the upper 40s and so is Biden in Cali and NEWSOM won the recall 60/40 because of TRUMP is dislike in Cali 60/40 that's why Cox and Elder dropped out, we have a no name R running for Gov but Newsom is Gray Davis II due to Housing Crisis but there is no Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

As noted some users I have debated like 2016 and Sir Muhammad whom don't believe in blue waves think we won 41 H seats in August no we were supposed to win 10/25 seats we won 42 H seats in October, 2018, because Ryan was Speaker and he was the anti BOEHNER when it mattered waves are late breaking they're not early breaking and we can see a massive shift the only R I see that has bucked the wave is Reynolds, but DeWine, Abbott, and DeSantis with 15 Blk, 26 Latino and Arab and female vote can certainly go down in November

[Brittain33]

1. Gay sex scandal
2. Literal conviction of a crime like under the Espionage Act where he goes to jail and has no way to communicate
3. Massive defeat at the polls in 2024 that drags down large numbers of Reps and Senators (maybe)

[Inmate Trump]

3. Massive defeat at the polls in 2024 that drags down large numbers of Reps and Senators (maybe)

They'll just say it was rigged. Literally any election defeat now is "voter fraud."

[Joe Biden 2024]

Nothing. The GOP will never abandon their false god.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I don't think anything he does would cause the party to drop him. I think he'd have a solid chance at being nominated even from a jail cell.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

If you think the Republicans are abandoning Trump now, when they haven't after everything that has happened the last seven years, I don't know what to tell you. I'm just going to laugh, honestly.

[MasterJedi]

He needs to die and then have his most rabid Boomer/Gen X supporters to as well. He doesn't appeal to the educated, business part of the party but he IS the base at this point. The blue collar, rural, white, angry older man who thinks they don't need to government.

[Hermit For Peace]

The only people who are going to be able to dump Trump are the Republicans. They are going to have to figure out "how" for themselves. Nobody else can do it for them because who can understand their inner workings after all has been said and done regarding Trump? And please GOP, light a fire under it. Trump is a disaster with every step he takes.

[ProudModerate2]

Nothing. The GOP will never abandon their false god.

[Aurelius]

He dies.

Big Macs for Trump! His arteries can only take so much...

[Crumpets]

I can think of at least one analogue of a cult-like support for someone falling apart without them dying - Fred Phelps got excommunicated from his own Westboro Baptist Church after he told members of a pro-gay non-profit "You're good people." This was regarded as "rank blasphemy" by the church, leading to them abandoning him as their leader while keeping their extreme ideology intact.

All that is to say, it wouldn't take much if Trump started moderating his rhetoric for the GOP to look somewhere else for guidance. It absolutely wouldn't end Trumpism though, and I think we're stuck with this sort of party as a whole for a while. And before anyone says "Trump would never moderate," looking at the Phelps case again, all it took was him getting old and not having the same fighting spirit to go out and scream at people every day, and Trump is not a young man.

[Badger]

Ronald Dion DeSantis

Ah, someone with all the same anti-democratic values and far right wing social and economic policies, just in a more electable package.

Not exactly a very justifiable answer.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Ronald Dion DeSantis

Ah, someone with all the same anti-democratic values and far right wing social and economic policies, just in a more electable package.

Not exactly a very justifiable answer.

Hes to the left of George W Bush on social issues so not really far right and also to say he and Trump have the same anti-democratic values is laughable .

Also Trump policy wise was good so I don't mind if DeSantis is like Trump policy wise

[President Johnson]

Hopefully losing more and more elections, especially 2022 and 2024. At some point, they need to change if one election after another is lost.

[MiddleRoad]

Hopefully losing more and more elections, especially 2022 and 2024. At some point, they need to change if one election after another is lost.

As someone else noted though, the Republican Party’s self image is Trump. I’ve never seen a political figure so define a party - or a party allow to allow itself to so defined by one man. Arguably the GOP did this with Reagan, but they only really began after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis when he left political life, so they worshipped a myth that had no effective control over the party, like the way Democrats lionized FDR after he died.

But this is a living man who is perhaps the most outspoken figure ever. And he has made it so for so many people being a Republican means being a Trump supporter, in many cases more than it even means being a Republican or even being a fan of the country itself.

It’s like a virus taking over a party, that’s a better analogy to me than a cult of personality. The same crowd that uses the “dog oomer” word and claims to despise Epstein and pedophilia, also does mental gymnastics defending and explaining away Trump was in photos with him….While also condemning Bill Clinton as basically an alleged child rapist for being in photos with him. So even something as serious as possible pedophiliac tendencies don’t dissuade them. Even the dude basically saying he wanted to bang his daughter….

[LostInOhio]

I have a theory that Trump has supplanted Christ in the minds of many of his most ardent supporters. As our country has largely become more irreligious even among some otherwise traditionally Christian groups, many people have felt lost and left behind by modern culture. He gives them an opportunity to believe in something they feel is “greater” than themselves. Sociologists have noticed how Trump’s speaking style resembles that of an old big-tent revivalist, with his countryside rallies the same style as the religious revivals that swept rural America in the first half of the 20th century. This is on purpose. Trump is directly attempting to conjure this image in their heads and it works.

They wouldn’t abandon Trump any sooner than they’d abandon God, and many of them even handwave his misdeeds away the same way they do that of the God of the Bible. If I were religious, I’d say he’s even a good candidate for the Antichrist.

[Progressive Pessimist]

A new figure like him would have to come along and steal his thunder. They are sheep and would need a new shepherd to flock to if their previous one is throw in prison long enough that they lose interest when he becomes a less ubiquitous presence in their lives, or dies. Only those two circumstances can cause this. As for who the new shepherd would be, the obvious answer is DeSuckass, but it's not entirely certain.

[MiddleRoad]

A new figure like him would have to come along and steal his thunder. They are sheep and would need a new shepherd to flock to if their previous one is throw in prison long enough that they lose interest when he becomes a less ubiquitous presence in their lives, or dies. Only those two circumstances can cause this. As for who the new shepherd would be, the obvious answer is DeSuckass, but it's not entirely certain.

DeSantis doesn’t have the “it” factor or carny like persona Trump has. He desperately wants to, but…Credit where credit is due, Trump is a good showman. DeSantis isn’t. And you either have “it” or you don’t; you can’t fake it, people see through it.

I am telling you, if DeSantis is the nominee in 2024, you’ll see a repeat of 1988 numbers. He’s 2024’s Barry Goldwater.

Trump straddled the anti-LGBT line in 2016 just enough to satisfy the right but not enough to alienate younger people totally. DeSantis is going out of his way to alienate the youth. Trump had a style of presentation which made him come off like an average Joe and appealed to working class voters (not just the WWC, either). DeSantis is nowhere near as rich, but has a snootiness to him that Trump didn’t. I cannot also see DeSantis doing as well with Hispanics as Trump did. He’s got a very limited range of appeal - Angry White people, maybe some 50 or 60+ Latino, Asian, and Black folks who aren’t trans friendly, maybe at best some edgy Gen Z right wingers. That’s it. He’s not going to win any other demographic