I didn’t see what else could happen, so it didn’t surprise me. He got the presidency. Moreover, he got it with a performance of bullshit bogus populism, which they had all already bought into.
The Republican party had been paving the way for Trump for decades, so it was no surprise to me that they would have to fall in line after him. Most of them got elected by using one form or another of Trump’s bullshit in their districts and states. In fact, Ted Cruz desperately was trying to become president by doing exactly what Trump did. Cruz just didn’t have the fakery skills that Trump has.
What happened to the Republican Party under Trump is the logical conclusion of the bed they’d been making for some time.
It’s also no surprise that–in order to rationalize this logical conclusion, (or at least, distract away from its glaringly obvious failure to the people of the nation)–right wing public discourse has fallen into all kinds of rhetorical smoke and mirrors, twisting themselves into pretzels as they try to fabricate blame in other directions (one of Trump’s most ingrained behaviors). We saw it here in the message board, back in 2015, when they would say, “at least Trump is not one of those typical politicians”, and we’re seeing it now, (in this thread, even), with desperate, bullshit fixations on Hunter Biden and other distractions designed to deflect from their abject failure to serve the American people in pursuit of their own self-interest. They’ve gotten very good at this, and have a good third of the country entirely duped.
There is indeed a sucker born every minute, and the rest of the Republicans know it as well as Trump. It was their game plan as well as his, so most of them had to play along with him. It’s the only way they can stay afloat.