This is institutional psychopathy. When you only care about yourself, the way you behave is radically different from how people who care about others would behave.
The GOP has lost. If they had a shred of interest in the good of the country, or of the people, they would say "oh well, let's try and win next time". That's how both parties have always behaved, for the good of the nation.
But they don't care. Under Trump, they have become incapable of caring about anything but themselves. So having lost, their strategy is to smash the system. No system, no loss. The worst that can happen is that they end up without power - but that's where they are right now, so they have nothing to lose. If they smash the system, they might end up with more power than they have right now. But they don't think that it's possible to end up with less - it became clear after the coup attempt that none of Trump's people, and certainly not Trump himself, would suffer any penalty.
The only way to deal with this institutional psychopathy would be to punish those who are undermining the system. But the Dems won't push for that, because they're worried it might damage the system.
I agree with this. But it's over-simplified to lump all GOPsters into a single category. There are at least 4 or 5 separate types.
* Some Republicans have been hate-filled bigots all their lives and would inevitably vote for the worst candidate: Donald Trump, Joe Arpaio, whoever. But this is a smallish minority.
* The vast majority of Republican voters are simply Americans who don't have a clue what's happening. Many of these have high intelligence but don't follow politics. (I can sympathize: I was in my 40's and a highly-respected professional when I first started paying attention to U.S. politics.)
* Many Americans have been brain-washed by fake news. Studies show that Fox viewers know LESS about current events than Americans who do NOT watch any news at all! (Given that, imagine the ignorance of those who get their news from QAnon or Maxnews.)
* GOP Congressmen and newscasters like Tucker Carlson are only in it for the bucks. Carlson will be worth many tens of millions of dollars. GOP Congresspeople are all on the way to be multi-millionaires. These are people who would sell their daughters to brothels instead if it paid better than being a Republican pundit. The Trump family fits in this group.
* Finally, there are Charles Koch and other "puppet masters." Although these billionaires would lose money when the economy collapses, it's naive to think they're worried about that. Having $15 billion when the U.S. looks like Putin's Russia is simply
more fun than having $40 billion in a liberal economy. When (not if) the U.S. becomes a banana republic, the billionaires will be able to order murders when they wish, and can enjoy all the 14 year-old girls they want. As we've seen recently, these appetites are harder to indulge in a liberal democracy even if you're very rich.
Over the past few years, the billionaire puppet masters have lost some of their power. The Frankenstein they created with FoxNews, Cambridge Analytics, etc. took on a life of its own and turned the GOP over to clowns. But this is probably just temporary. Koch and his ilk are already planning new ways to subvert social media, to out-Trump Trump, and to harness American psychoses for their own ends.
