Political Memes

Cults of personality usually don't survive the death of their leader. It's a rare case when somebody else is charismatic enough to step in and replace them. Even in the case where the leader nominates a successor, the cult often loses followers quickly after the leader dies. Usually, the cult withers and either breaks apart into splinter factions as others compete for power, or it dies completely.

The big question is whether his cult is loyal to the party or loyal to him specifically. If it's the former, then they would rally behind the new candidate and Trump would become a martyr for sure. If it's the latter, then it could possibly spell the end of the Republican party as he would leave a power vacuum that would see the voters splinter amongst new contenders and the most extremist core of the cult becomes disenfranchised with the party for not being extreme enough.

Personally, I think we'd see a combination of the two. The Republican party right now has become the party of Trump, with him as the linchpin that the party's policies are based around. The average Republican is loyal to the party to a fault, but Trump's core seems to have drunk the Flavor-Aid like it's Jonestown and they're prepping for the massacre, and I don't think they'd rally around a new leader like the rest would. We've already seen several people try to court Trump's base to little effect, like DeSantis.

I think if Trump died, we'd see the Republican party weaken due to infighting as multiple people try to become the next candidate and restructure the party, with the average Republican rallying around whoever eventually comes out on top and Trump becoming seen as a martyr to the cause. But, I think Trump's core base would splinter and potentially see a number of them leave for more extremist groups outside the party, and the infighting would leave the Republicans weakened for a time, potentially unable to field a strong enough candidate to unite the party for the upcoming election.