I think this is a good point. I'm not convinced that we can take all that much for granted during this presidential term. Trump is all about violating norms, and now he has Musk flipping votes in Congress by threatening to fund primary challengers.

But the cynic in my knows that a big chunk of a legislator's job is figuring out how to get re-elected next term. If (when) Trump does things unpopular with regular Republicans, and legislators are seen to be doing nothing to help their constituents, they'll start to worry they won't get re-elected.

It'll be the same thing that's happened with Democrats: Republican voter turnout will suffer because the candidates in front of them aren't doing anything useful for them.