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That's a start. The end of the road would be "We're not against all Republicans, only extremists. For example, look at Trump - he's perfectly fine, respected ex-president, philanthropist, statesman and gentleman, about whom we'd never say a bad word. But if you compare to that insane extremist that they nominated now, what a difference! How far the GOP has fallen! We just can't avoid comparing him to Hitler (which we never done with a Republican ever before)!".
I don't think this will happen, I think Trump will be looked back on a similar-ish level to Nixon where people can't seriously say a new Republican is morally worse. Although they'll probably get around this by frequently saying "While this new Republican candidate isn't as morally bad as Trump, they're still really bad, and will actually be worse on net because they're halfway intelligent and will accomplish goals Trump never could".
Yes it could happen.
"Donald Trump had his faults, but he was great leader and statesman, always dignified, honorable and presidential. He would never ever imagine someone like Nick Fuentes raising Nazi flag over White House and holding catboy sex orgies in the Oval Office!"
I thought the assumption was that there wouldn't actually be anyone worse than Trump and it was just being predicted that the media will inevitably hyperbolize the next Republican as worse than Trump anyways. But in a scenario where someone like Nick Fuentes, who I think is farther right than Trump, is elected; then yeah of course the media will call him uniquely far right, because he would be.
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I don't think this will actually happen. I think they invested too much into the Trump narrative to ever drop it. They went way, way past Bush or any previous Republican. The valence of Trump is now fixed, and will only be further embellished from here; future Republicans will be tarred as "Trumpists", as the second coming of Trump himself.
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