re: #177 No Malarkey!

Good luck with that; most GOP voters hate her. She lost the GOP primary for her House seat by 37 points, the second worst drubbing for a House incumbent in 60 years.

As I said, this assumes a complete exposure/collapse of the current party. There are diehard fanatics who will never give up but most are opportunists and bigots who will turn on a dime when they finally see that power is no longer on their side. I remember an American columnist, perhaps William L. Shirer, noting sardonically how hard it was to find a Nazi in Berlin at the time of the Potsdam conference (July 1945). Just 3 months earlier, millions of them were still prepared to fight to the death for the Fuhrer. Similarly, in 1925 the Ku Klux Klan had more than 5 million members, about 1 of every 4 eligible men. It collapsed to within a few thousand in less than two years. Authoritarian cults seem to be especially susceptible to this sudden collapse effect; the leader is perfect and infallible, until he isn’t. We haven’t reached the end of the MAGAts’ devotion but that does not mean that the end cannot happen.
Btw, I think the GOP survived Watergate because Nixon was not a cult figure. Reagan was close to it but he stayed out of serious trouble until his senile ass was trundled off into retirement.