The senate is less the party of Trump as they have to win state wide elections and Trump barely beat Harris. They also tend to have longer tenures that spans presidents. While he is ascendant he can command loyalty, but once his ship is sinking the rats will abandon him faster in the senate than the house. The house takes care of itself with its relatively rapid turnover, making incumbents more likely to stick by him. There are a handful of sycophant senators that would have trouble distancing themselves too much, but they are also well known chameleons so I think no one would be surprised when they flip.
The real test will be the summer and fall as natural disasters and the accumulation of cuts and the trade war all converge into a crescendo of negativity.
We went through all this during his previous term. They GOP Senate had the perfect excuse to make a break with the past during the impeachment following January 6, all they had to do was huff and puff a bit and stand on the Constitution, and they could have moved on with their political lives. But they fielded a bunch of BS excuses and stood behind the guy who called a rally that resulted in the Congress being overrun and trashed by a mob. Only a few voted to remove him from office.
It's worth considering the possibility that as a party they're nowadays more into fascism than republicanism. Rome was a republic too, until it wasn't.
I think of Trump as a Sulla like figure - not the guy who ends the republic but who cracks the republic opening the door to someone more calculating - Julius Caesar.
The difference though is the Roman republic had a constitutional order that was implicit rather than explicit. The American constitution and bill of rights is very difficult to change, and the order is fairly explicit. This was intentional with the assumption that even if a Sulla like figure emerges and consolidates power, it’ll revert over time to a liberal humanist republic. The anti federalists examine this in some depth and the scenario we are in was definitely considered carefully. It’s remarkable it took 249 years - but it was 430 years before Sulla seized the dictatorship by declaring emergency powers and cracked the constitutional order of Rome.
Small but important nitpick: Senators first have to win their primaries. That's where they're most vulnerable. Followed by fund raising (access to major donors), probably.
It's a party of spineless hypocrites... given the choice of the embarassment, admitting they were wrong, and coming out somewhat ok vs. the choice of supporting a dictatorship that erodes free and fair elections, my pessimism says most Republicans will vote for the latter. As a bonus, they'll get to have Trump-level immunity. Then it'll be a simple email to the businesspeople of the state asking who wants to be an oligarch, start opening your wallets. And for the weekend fun, line up those girls (and boys!) and get grabbin'!
The real test will be the summer and fall as natural disasters and the accumulation of cuts and the trade war all converge into a crescendo of negativity.