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A common statement I hear repeated endlessly on political discussions is how the majority of GOP electeds, not the base mind you, are hoping for a Big Mac, or a Heart Attack, or a stroke to remove Trump from the political field by removing him from life. They suffer twin delusions with this fantasy.

The first is that somehow Trump vanishing from the scene would magically return the Republican Party to its state before that grotesque vainglorious buffoon descended that elevator. This ignores the fact that decades of stoking fear and hate created the condition that allowed Trump to seize the party from its establishment. It also ignores the basic truth of the universe, that time flows in one direction and the past is forever lost to us. The GOP today without Trump will carry forward Trump’s stamp. He has remade the party and while it can be remade again it will never be something from the past.

The second delusion is the idea that Trump’s sudden demise would be accepted as factual by his most fanatical supporters.

In July of 1973 actor, athlete, and producer Bruce Lee died. For many this was simply unbearable and rather than accept the simple fact that everyone dies and sometimes death is visited upon the healthy and fir conspiracy theories sprang up and continue to this day.

In July of 1999 JFK jr., son of the slain president, died when the airplane he was piloting suffered ‘controlled flight into terrain.’ The terrain being the Atlantic Ocean. One of the Q-Anon conspiracies is that he did not die, it was a hoax, and that he would return. The fact that so many very right people are holding out hope for a Democratic persona to returned gives evidence to the unhinged nature of conspiracy theories.

Trump’s death would instantly become a new and probably vast conspiracy theory. It may seem far-fetched and beyond reason to many of us but remember this is the population of people who accept that there is a secret cabal of Democrats feasting on infants in the basement of pizza parlors.

Between the lasting effect of Trump’s years at the head of the GOP and the fanatical followers who would not accept his death the party would find itself tethered to Trump ghost far tighter than they ever had been to Reagan’s.