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You've got to remember, post-2020-election the Republican machine did not declare "stolen election, government illegitimate". McConnell outright condemned Trump right after squelching his impeachment trial. You're right that a few lone wolves aren't much of an issue, but if the Republican machine as a whole flips into "rebellion" mode that's quite a different story, and having elections be stolen for real is the sort of thing that might push them over (remember, if the fix goes in that means all their hopes of accomplishing anything via the system - the whole reason they are politicians - just caught on fire). In particular, once one state declares secession or the equivalent, all the other red states are faced with the choice of "join the rebels" or "be made to fight the rebels and then be crushed politically in the ensuing witch-hunt". Texas is the obvious spark, but not the only possibility.
Complicating matters is the fact that the PRC is probably looking to have a Taiwan invasion ready and waiting next year, precisely in order to take advantage of possible chaos in the USA.
Most of my hope is on "the SCOTUS nixes attempts to remove Trump from the ballot". Outside of that scenario... well, I'm sure glad I don't live in the 'States.
Of course not; that would not be keeping in their role as the Outer Party; the Washington Generals to the Democrats' Globetrotters. It would threaten their cushy jobs and ongoing access to the proverbial gravy train.
As the Spartan ephors said to Philip II, "if." I don't think they will, because enough of the long time party establishment are, to use wrestling terminology, jobbers. They're paid to make a show of opposition, to maintain "kayfabe," and then lose. And they likely know it. It doesn't matter how blatant any future "steal" is, they know their continued access wealthy donors, personal influence, and those famous "DC cocktail parties" depends on insisting that the elections were still free and fair.
No, that's far from the whole reason. Again, there's the many benefits of the job itself — the pay, the perks, the status, the influence. I think it was one of Chris Rufo's essays that pointed out how the Democratic party has shown a willingness to accept short-term electoral losses in pushing through long-term legal and social changes, highlighting the particular example of LBJ. In contrast, the GOP, most especially the party establishment, trend very much in the opposite direction — they consistently prioritize protecting their phony-baloney jobs (to borrow from the great Mel Brooks) over "making a difference." There are benefits to being in the Outer Party. There are reasons that generally-competent basketball players play for the Washington Generals.
(Then there's the ones like Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich (can you tell I'm Alaskan?), for whom politics is literally the family business. The latter was being "groomed" for his eventual Senate seat all the way back when he was in high school. They were raised to be politicians. There are reasons I say that an openly aristocratic system is just being more honest about the ruling class.)
Plus, even if the GOP establishment does want to accomplish things in office, those aren't necessarily the same things that their voters — especially the Trump base — want. As someone once put it on a lengthy youtube video I once watched (analyzing county-level maps and breakdowns of biennial Congressional elections from the end of WWII to the end of the 20th century), the Republican Party began as the party of New England bankers… and that's what it always will be. They only "picked up" white working voters because the post-Nixon Democrats "dropped" them, as Matt Stoller describes at length in his 2016 Atlantic piece "How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul." The job of GOP elites is to falsely pander to the voter base when campaigning, then deliver for the elite donor class in office — and I remember sometime last year or so a quote floating around the web from an interview with a Republican campaign strategist where he pretty much said that.
Assuming they aren't able to delay it from reaching them until after the election.
We seem to have very-different models of these people. I guess if there's an obvious steal and the GOP just rolls over and plays dead, I'll have to give this more credence than I currently do.
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