Republicanism’s only policy is to support Donald Trump. Let’s just give them what they want

There's been another uptick in stories about the Republican base and their deep-seated political beliefs that turn on a dime whenever you bring up the surnames Trump or Biden. The funniest is probably the hapless Iowa business owner now famous for a CNN interview in which he praised the government's new grants that have really boosted his business, only to also oppose them because President Joe Biden did them. He simultaneously dumped on Donald Trump for being a terrible person while hoping the seditionist crime boss wins reelection.

But the same dynamic can also be found in angry mob form. It was The Washington Post's Josh Dawsey who pointed us to a glorious tidbit in the recent New Yorker pre-obituary of the Ron DeSantis campaign: Hunting for anti-Trump messaging they might use, the campaign found that 70% of polled Republicans agreed the pandemic lockdowns during the Trump presidency were bad.

If they switched the language to a direct attack on Trump, calling them "Trump's COVID lockdowns," though, the numbers flipped completely. Seventy percent of Republicans wouldn't agree that those were bad.