“…why does the GOP overwhelmingly support Trump…?”
Because they’ve spent the last 7 years hounding everyone who wasn’t a Trumper out of their party.
It’s not just that #Republicans can’t win elections anymore without gerrymandering, voter-ID scams, outright cheating, etc.…
…they also can’t even win votes from their own #GOP base without sucking up to #Trump.
It’s a sad end for the Party of Lincoln.
Well the reason we know that isn't true is because of the absolute numbers who are getting behind Trump.
It's not that they have hounded people out of the party, because there are still so many people in the party today. Had they hounded people out of the party then there would be fewer people in the party than there are.
I would say so many people today are supporting Trump because they see him as the victim of an inappropriate attack by the justice system.
It's just that simple, whether it is appropriate or inappropriate, that is how so many people view it, so they are supporting him out of a sense of fairness.
It's not my taste, but that is how a lot of people operate
There ARE fewer. You can see what happened to GOP politicians who had a problem with Trump—when he first came in, old-timers cut their loses and retired, whereas Cheney, Kinzinger et al. eventually lost their seats to Trumper nutcases. Among rank&file voters, Repubs → Independents.
Also, Repubs skew a LOT older than Dems—only ~30% are under 50. (Dems: ~43%).* Worst case, Dems could simply outlive the GOP.
Believe it or not, there's more to the world than Donald Trump.
Folks like Cheney and Kinzinger lost their seats because they were kind of awful, regardless of Trump. They didn't represent their constituents well, so their constituents chose not to send them back to Congress.
As for age, there's nothing new with young people skewing that direction but shifting as they grow up.