Effect of 1912 redux in 2024 on Congressional Races

[GALeftist]

In 1912, it appears that a lot of the Republican losses were down to the Republican/Progressive split. Despite their huge gains, the Democratic percentage of the popular vote declined by 3.5 points. Many of the seats they won were with narrow pluralities, like Illinois's 3rd district:

George E. Gorman (D) 33.2%
William W. Wilson (R) 28.8%
Franklin P. Simons (P) 26.6%

So I suspect it would be down to whether Trump's "Patriot Party" or whatever does similarly. If it does, I think it's obvious what would happen. If it doesn't, I think it would probably help congressional Republicans on net by turning out nonvoters, but you could also see independents running against many congressional Republicans. Honestly I don't know. However, unlike Roosevelt, Trump would not be running to advance any serious policy agenda, so I kind of doubt he'd go to the trouble to run candidates aligned with him.

To be clear, I don't think this is the modal outcome, but I think there is this weird doublethink on the part of a lot of anti-Trump conservatives that makes me chuckle. I keep seeing people like baseballcrank and indeed IndyRep eviscerate Trump for a lack of devotion to conservatism or the Republican Party as opposed to his personal ambitions and then in the same breath dismiss the threat of any attempt on his part to sabotage another Republican who wins the primary. Like, it's one or the other. Also, even if he flames out nationally (which I heavily doubt), even if he draws only 2% of votes that would have otherwise gone to the R nominee, that's still pretty catastrophic given how close elections tend to be in this day and age. And, like, Gary Johnson got >3% of the vote nationally in 2016. Are we seriously saying that we think Trump would be a nonfactor?