As the Republican Party writhes in existential agony, it’s easy to point a finger — you get to choose which finger(s) — at Donald Trump for cleaving the party into warring factions.

The Republican dilemma is usually cast as two-way. Return to the center-right conservatism of the past 40 years or follow the piper into the river at Hamelin. Will the party find more voters with traditional conservatism or with the defeated-but-still-bullying ex-president who plans to retaliate against anyone not showing fealty to him?

Then there is the dilemma between the political and the moral. Do what we believe will keep us winning elections or do what is right?

First, the political. Republicans are probably wrong to see the political problem as two-pronged. I see at least three prongs. The party must choose not only conservatism or Trumpism but must also subdivide the Trumpians into those who will back any white-nationalist candidate — can you say Eric Trump or Ivanka Kushner or Josh Hawley or Ted Cruz? — and those who will vote only when Donald Trump Sr. is on the ballot.

Thomas Edsall wrote on Wednesday in The New York Times about polls showing that what he calls the MAGA crowd feels itself less tied to the Republican Party and more tied to Trump. This includes the MAGAs who are one-and-done, who voted in 2020 for the first time and will never vote again. How many fit that description? Can’t say.

About 20 million people in 2020 voted for the first time, NBC News said. About 10 million of them voted Trump. It’s not rare for lots of new voters to turn out for someone who appeals to them, and then disappear. Think John F. Kennedy. Think Barack Obama.

Hawley and Cruz want to capture Trump’s white-nationalists, and they may be banking on the first-timers turning out again. They may be disappointed, but then, Cruz has proved only that he can turn out voters in Texas. And George Will summed up Hawley perfectly: “Has there ever been such a high ratio of ambition to accomplishment?”

If the Republicans decide to follow the lead of the disgraced ex-president but with new candidates, they may find that a lot of the one-time MAGAs dropped out of the parade.

And they will have done nothing to win support among traditional Republicans, many of whom are leaving. So far, Sens. Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona have  declined to seek re-election on a ticket led by Trump. Sens. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Portman of Ohio and Richard Shelby of Alabama have all announced retirement.

That’s bad news for those Republicans who want to return to the center-right. They can’t participate in a party whose top practitioners are bailing out.

So, many of the followers are bailing, too. Since the Trump-inspired insurrection on Jan. 6, the New York Times reports, more than 10,000 Republicans in Arizona have changed enrollment to Democratic or unenrolled. More than 12,000 did in Pennsylvania and more than 33,000 in California. Changes in enrollment commonly tick up just after an election, but these Republican losses outstrip Democratic losses by factors of 2, 3, 4 and more.

The moral aspect would be a no-brainer if the subject weren’t Capitol Hill Republicans.

As Nelson Mandela put it, “It’s never too late to do the right thing.” Or as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.”

We saw in the impeachment process the pretzel thinking of Republican leaders. Who would have expected the moral high ground to be occupied by someone named Cheney? But there was Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, voting to impeach Trump.

She told CNN this week, “We need to make sure that … Republicans are the party of truth, that we are being honest about what really did happen in 2020. People have been lied to” by Trump about the integrity of the election, she said. Truthfully.

Here’s the deeper story. On Feb. 3, the Republican House caucus secretly reaffirmed Cheney as No. 3 leader. Then, in a public vote on whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a MAGA fanatic from Georgia, could keep her committee seats despite ugly, certifiably crazy, assertions — Greene said Jewish laser beams from outer space caused California wildfires, 9/11 was an inside job and school shootings were “false flag” operations — those Republicans voted, 199-11, to keep her in place. Then they stood to applaud her.

It seems pretty clear that the moral high ground is too steep a climb for the Republican Party. So, instead, they will continue to follow a political loser — remember, Trump ran behind almost all other Republicans in almost every state — and do the wrong thing.

Charlie Sykes, a political commenter, left the Republican Party four years after I left it. He said the other day on NPR that the Republicans Party can survive only if it builds “a coalition of the decent.”

Don’t hold your breath.

Bob Neal wonders why Republicans don’t listen to Mandela and Dr. King. Maybe it’s because, well, you know, Mandela and Dr. King weren’t white nationalists. Neal can be reached at turkeyfarm@myfairpoint.net.

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