“A lot of us miss the old days of battling over ideas,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based GOP consultant. “Now it is something completely different — trying to convince people that these QAnon people are crazy and illegitimate and all the other things.”

“It’s bleak, and it is going to take some leadership, from people who are running for president [in 2024] to people in Congress, to step up and say this,” Steinhauser added…

In Tyler’s view, the rot in the party began with Trump’s victory in the 2016 Republican presidential primary and is now reaching a nadir. The immediate future he foresees is one in which Trump-like candidates can win primaries in solid Republican districts but will have a disastrous impact on the party’s overall appeal.

“The Republican Party will lose general elections, lose Senate seats, lose governorships — but they will continue to send nutcases like Taylor Greene to Congress because they will win red districts. Then that will become a self-fulfilling prophesy, making the party more and more radicalized until people won’t stand for it anymore.”