What Happens to Republicans if Trump Dies Tomorrow?

How will they rebuild themselves, will they try and who would believe them anyway?

(Originally published in May 2021)

It wasn’t my brain that came up with this idea of a deceased Donald Trump. It was actually the Donald who planted the seed.

Reading an article about Republican nervousness about a Trump run in 2024, Lindsey Graham said the president would only run if he felt his health was good enough. And then it dawned on me — what if Trump doesn’t make it to 2024? What if he doesn’t make it to next week?

The majority of Republicans have not just thrown in their hat with Trump, they have sold their souls to him. They have absorbed his lies. They made his early-January insurrection part of their quilt. His anti-constitutionality, his corruption, and his authoritarian poison are now the three pillars of their collective narrative.

If the Kool-Aid had left the most hardcore Trumpists lying prostrate and motionless like at the People’s Temple in Guyana, then it might have been a sign to the less obsessed: Time to end this walkabout in the desert of fascism. The sour Kool-Aid has instead left them emboldened wandering about like a herd of red-hat-wearing, disheveled zombies. He still holds court down near the tip of our nation, moist from a sea breeze. He still mentors the crazy and guides them to finish what he began.

Would the passing of the 45th president of the United States awaken the walking dead from their eternal slumber and send them racing back to us for de-Trumpification classes? Or, would it harden their resolve and fill them with the kind of partisan purpose the Allies at the end of World War II were certain the fanatical SS would have? Hidden in Alpine caves after the death of the German Fuhrer, the SS was supposed to create the eternal redoubt and nibble at the edges until victory arrived. Most instead just went back to their homes and lived out their lives.

If Trump passed suddenly, hunched over a glass of Diet Coke during “Fox & Friends,” what would become of Marjorie Taylor Greene? I would be willing to bet that Kevin McCarthy would be ousted from the House leadership before Trump’s body was even cold. He is the weakest leader the Republicans have ever had, even weaker than Paul Ryan. Ryan has at least spoken out against the Big Lie lunacy.

What would have happened to Trump’s newest golf buddy, Lindsey Graham? Would he finally come out of the closet? Would he finally admit that he is an operation away from being a transgender woman?

Deprived of the hope that Trump could win in 2024, and fully untethered from the Trump brand, many Republicans would toss themselves at the coffin in an attempt to turn back time, to deny fate its latest catch; but then, sobbing in the public eye, they would retreat to Capitol offices and guzzle single malt in raging bouts of bacchanalian hysteria — such would be the “unbridled ness” of the occasion that babies would be made between interns and interns, staffers and staffers and elected officials and elected officials. Imagine a Cheney-Romney progeny? The two dynasties come together at last.

The “heartland,” however, would truly be saddened. Fox News, and all of the rest of the media misfits pumping hate and bile into the ether, would suspect that nefarious, dark-skinned souls working down at Mar-a-Lago had poisoned the last Diet Coke their dear leader would ever feel tingling his senses.

I am sure we would see violence. We might see revenge taken on Hispanics in America due to the “absolute certainty” that the pillow-king Mike Lindell would have amassed in the hours after the orange one had stopped gurgling hate and mumbling about how much he loved himself.

I wonder what public high school, bridge, airport, football field, highway rest stop, or state even would be the first to change its name to “Donald Trump Memorial?” Unlike Trump who had to be forced to lower flags when Senator John McCain died, the nation would officially “mourn” the passing of the self-described king. In a moment of irony, however, I am pretty sure that the Arab celebrations that Trump didn’t actually see in Jersey City on 9/11 would be witnessed all over the country, and not only Arabs would be participating his death.

A large minority of the country would want the day to be turned into a national holiday to honor the man; and the majority would agree that it should also be a national holiday — only not to honor him but to celebrate our emancipation; celebrate America’s awkward victory-by-default over fascism.

Without Trump, the Republicans don’t have a personality big enough, vile enough — stupid enough they have plenty for sure — to replace him. McConnell himself will be gone soon and so the Republican Party will look to Cheney or Kinzinger to stop the boat from rocking, to row it back onto course. The soul-searching will be brutal. The weekend all-you-can-eat pancake breakfasts will be attended by thousands: How do we rebuild after Trump? (Can we? Should we?)

The Trump-sick leading the party today is being tolerated only because everyone fears getting on the bad side of Trump. With him gone, they will floss their teeth with those Trump-sick lunatics; but here is the thing they should keep in mind: Unless they exorcise all of the lunacy, unless they release themselves from the yoke Fox News has fastened to their party, unless they break their despicable habits of putting Wall Street always above Main Street, neither Trump-mourning America nor moderates will flock to them.

No one will flock to them because unless the infrastructure which made Trump is purged then a third party, a fresh start, will be made. The hard-core will make a Trump Party and the rest will form a Reagan Party. The history books will finally be purged of the Republican Party — a zombie since 2008 anyway.

The passing of Trump will bring the water to a boil; eventually, though, it will boil out and America will become one nation but two, irreparably torn and incapable of solving even the simplest of problems. Pretty much where we are today: one half wants to make America really great and the other wants to make Trump great.

Remove dotard and they are left with nothing. They become less hinged than when dear leader was waiting off in the shadows promising to return. Right now, it is his “imminent” return that keeps many at bay.

If we are lucky, Donnie won’t drop dead unexpectedly but will have some time to do a farewell tour; and, to advise his followers to chill, just a wee bit, for the sake of America.