Listened to an interesting interview with former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake this morning... He basically said that Trump has infected the party, and said the GOP Senate can be broken into three groups:
1.) People who are horrified of Trump backlash, so support everything he says even though they strongly dislike him, his approach, etc.
2.) People who are privately working against Trump.
3.) People who are cheering him on.
I think the most interesting comment he made, in discussing current GOP Senators is that the vast majority of them had really high aspirations of legislating when they got to the Senate. They wanted the "Senate to be the Senate", in the way it has always been... He said that is dead now. There is no legitimate debate anymore. You are either with Trump, or against Trump. That's it. Carrying out his wishes or opposing them. It's not a true deliberative body anymore.
When he was asked why he is supporting Biden even though their policy positions are different, he said, paraphrasing "because Biden will bring the civility back and we can have those discussions, those debates. As Senators that is what we want to do. I can win a civil debate with a Democratic Senator on healthcare solutions, and then we can come to a compromise deal. There is none of that going on under Trump. There are no real debates, on policy or anything else, and I know that bothers every Senator who had hopes for coming to Washington and doing what Senators are supposed to do, instead of defending the President and blindly supporting him"....
He also said that Trump winning could be worse for the GOP than Trump losing.... Said 4 more years of Trump will turn even more people off, and possibly flip Texas blue, which creates all its own problems.
He said the most positive thing that can happen for the party is for Biden to win convincingly, which is what will show voters and elected officials that Trumpism is the wrong path, and then they can quickly come back with a new brand of conservatism that works, is inclusive, etc instead of what Trumpism brings.