Here's the game-theory breakdown on the situation:

Who benefits from Trump being the last Republican president?

Forget aspirations, forget statements of intent, forget philosophical leanings, get down'n'dirty on it. Conservatism, not capital-C American Conservatism but "conservatism" as sociological behavior, is rules-based order and altering those rules destroys order. Conservatism ruled China for several thousand years - "what the emperor says, goes." Conservatism ruled Islam for more than half of its run, with varying amounts of "It's in the Quran" "it's in the Quran and Hadith" "it's in the Quran, Hadith and Sunnah". Al Qaeda and ISIS are widely regarded as apostates by conservative muslims, FWIW, because of their loose interpretations of the Quran.

Conservatism and populism never align. Conservative social principles are often aped by populists but they never walk the walk. In the political climate of the Weimar republic the Nazis were radicals through and through. So were Mussolini and the fascista. If anything, radical populism is used to sweep away liberalism and replace it with conservatism (see: Iran) but once in place, conservatives gonna conserve.

The Republican party has been using conservative social principles in a populist framework since Newt Gingrich. They've been able to protect their positions through gerrymandering and the peculiarities of the electoral college but a brief glimpse at the 2022 results makes it pretty clear that taking down Roe was dangerous. It's also been a 40-year goal so I reckon most conservatives would argue it was worth it. Trump, on the other hand...

Aside from flipping the supreme court his term in office was a net loss. He polarized the electorate past the point where Republicans can accomplish anything. The Republicans have lost John Boehner, Paul Ryan, Liz Cheney and Jeff Flake for not being crazy enough. Pretend you're in the Federalist Society. Do you consider Marjorie Taylor Greene a good trade for Paul Ryan? JD Vance a good trade for Jeff Flake? Do these picks advance your goals? Do they enrich your coffers?

Keep in mind: corporations have been noticing how shitty the Republicans have been for them. And keep in mind: it's not like the Republicans chose Trump. They ended up with him because they've been dog-whistling so long that the yard ended up full of mutts.

Liberals forget: Democrats will only vote for Democrats if those Democrats pass their 99-point purity test. Republicans will vote for Republicans unless they do something so repugnant that they stay home instead. Democrats are grudgingly aligned with the Democratic party but Republicans need a formal excommunication before they'll disregard a Republican.

So who benefits from the Federalist Society trashing their principles for a man who is anathema to everything the Federalist Society holds dear? Clarence Thomas, for sure. That dude will go wherever he's paid to go, or more specifically, wherever Ginny is paid to make him go. Gorsuch? Gorsuch gives no fucks for Trump. Alito? Alito wouldn't piss on Trump if he were on fire, much like Scalia before him. It's all a game to Alito and Trump doesn't play by the rules. Cavanaugh? He might. But he also knows that at best, Democrats will forever be working angles for his downfall and never let the world forget about his hearings and at worst, he'll end up sidelined in an ornamental court that will never do anything but rubberstamp a hereditary Trump administration. Barrett? Tough to say but she's got the same problems as Cavanaugh. Roberts? Roberts upheld Obamacare via state's rights. If you look at the way Roberts has been ruling, he's trying to preserve the (conservative) legitimacy of the supreme court and he's been using State's Rights to do it.

The Republican Party is in a death spiral. Trump had 4 years to stuff the administration with loyalists and his insurrection still failed. Not only that but everyone associated with it is either career-finished, legally-imperiled or both. Who are these clever opportunists looking this situation over and going "now that the Democrats have forewarning this is all going to be easier and more lucrative this time?"

Conservatives never signed up for Trump, they've just been unable to get rid of him. But he's an old man, growing increasingly febrile, with less and less influence among business interests and a policy platform increasingly divorced from the wants and needs of mainstream conservatism. What does a Trump administration look like in, say, 2027? Are the Republicans busily laying the groundwork for a Ramaswamy administration? A Stephen Miller administration? Who's left aside from lickspittle toadies? And how do you actually get anything done?

It's one thing to back Caesar Augustus when he's got the Praetorian Guard. It's quite another when he's on the outs and you're four years away from a Caligula administration. So right now? Everyone is trying to say the right thing to maintain their position for a time when they can say what they want again.

I'll say this again, for clarity and posterity: TRUMP TOOK HIS BEST SHOT AND FAILED. Mutherfucker pulled out all the stops leading up to January 6, and left no stone unturned in the aftermath. Every move since has been a portrait of incompetence. The part liberals miss is that every Republican is telegraphing "I want to keep my job" which overlaps with "I want Trump in office" until it doesn't. When you face no electoral penalty for dishonesty, capriciousness, duplicity and falsehood, you can say whatever the fuck you want so they all want Trump. As soon as it's safe to say they don't? They'll act like they never did.

From a game theory perspective, a supreme court ruling that says "yup, states can ban whoever the fuck they want" benefits the conservatives more. It would allow them to do things like simply ban Democrats from running in Florida, for example. For a while, anyway, but it gives them a lot of performative juice.

I don't this is at all settled. I think there's a lot of really exotic parliamentary maneuvering going on and part of it is boxing the Supreme Court into branding Trump an insurrectionist. Four more years of Biden hurts them a lot less than a second Trump administration and they know it - Biden faces consequences for reneging on deals.

They'll never say this of course. But if you watch the behavior of anybody who actually runs things (McConnell, Roberts) you get a very different perspective on Republican behavior than if you just watch Lindsay Graham say some shit on Fox and Friends.

The Federalist Society wants an originalist interpretation of the constitution and they are the only qualified originalists. That's not unclear. The issue of clarity comes down to how much they're willing to deprecate their future integrity for present utility. "Federalist Society legal scholars" is operationally the same as "high ranking Muslim clerics" in this instance; the Papal Bull has already been issued, the question is how big a schism the church will experience. A casual observer might note that it's not a good time for schism.

Aside from Dobbs, the Supreme Court has been pretty ideologically consistent and it's the ideological inconsistency of Dobbs that has most scholars upset with the Supreme Court. The credibility issues the court faces right now stem entirely from a shift to ideology and even then, that ideology isn't "whatever Trump wants, Trump gets." The poster boy for the unitary executive is Bill Barr and even Bill Barr pulled the ripcord on Trump. Here's Captain Torture reviewing a book by Mr. 14th Amendment in the Federalist Society's Review:

He reads Articles I and II as disposing of the prerogatives held by the British King, as the Founders knew them through a mixture of British precedent, Blackstone’s Commentaries, and recent colonial history. McConnell carefully reviews the royal prerogatives and traces where they end up in the constitutional scheme: many go to Congress (regulating trade, raising the military, coining money), some remain with the Executive (enforcing the law, Commander-in-Chief, issuing pardons), and others are shared (making treaties, making judicial and cabinet appointments). McConnell is surely right that the Founders approached the task of drafting the constitutional text in this way, and viewing Articles I and II through this lens can lead to surprising insights, such as clarifying the power over immigration.

Now - that's some in-the-weeds shit. But one thing it never says is "the President is king."

Let's talk about some fuzzy thinking of yours:

Five justices have already behaved like they expect zero accountability for the GOP at the ballot box with the repeal of Roe.

So why THE FUCK would they back Trump

There's this tedious, tiresome, tawdry thing that people do: they assume that anyone who doesn't share their values has "fuck you" as their values. It makes them feel better and saves their empathy for people they like. A couple weeks ago Liz Cheney was making the talk show rounds and both Stephen Colbert and Rachel Maddow went out of their way to say some sort of "I hate this person's guts but" just to get liberals to listen. this shit's hard to do but it clarifies the world.

And spencerflem is right; Joe Biden and establishment Dems are perpetually stuck in the 1980's or '90's, bound by relatively higher norms and decency

"Higher norms and decency" are the fundamental bedrock of governmental stability. You need to read this fucking book right now. Sarah Chayes - who is in a position to know - makes the point that regardless of the political system, it's corruption that destroys it in the end and the Trump administration is corrupt as fuck. Any government crisis in the United States of the past 200 years? The root issue is corruption. The fact that the Democrats slavishly (and often irritatingly) fight against corruption serves the purpose of protecting the longevity of the Democratic Party. Lowest ebb of the Democrats? the Tip O'Neill era, where Democrats tended to be the corrupt ones. Fuckin' Menendez is a cancer and anybody with any hang time knows it; it sucks that they shot Al Franken in the head but when those are your standards you gotta abide by 'em.

Like LOL, Schumer two days ago was like "Yes, Trump's 'poisoning the blood' rhetoric is troublesome, but we have plenty of problems on this side of the aisle, too", and it's just like... Haven't you run out of feet to shoot yourself in??

The Democrats are the whole of the government now, considering that the Republican congress has the agenda items "obstruction" and "vacation" and nothing else. Making the whole of the government spin around a 2024 candidate does not serve their purposes while busily funding the Ukraine War and trying to keep the Middle East from expanding into a regional conflagration.

Look: If I'm Putin? I'm letting Iran know that everybody benefits if Biden loses, and Biden loses if the US is forced to back Israel in an unpopular war. Get Triple-H moving and we'll arrange a new stalemate. That's the whole game here and if you're actually trying to govern the United States? You have no choice but to play it. Giving Trump air only fans the flames.

Can you imagine if SCOTUS reinstates Trump on the Colorado ballot under a ruling declaring that he did not commit insurrection, and then Jack Smith's case finds him guilty of insurrection shortly before the election? SCOTUS will probably go with the "he's not an officer of the U.S. as defined in the constitution" bullshit, as a cop-out, but, fuck, even then, we're really, really in for it this next election.

The Colorado supreme court already ruled that he committed insurrection. That's not the question on the table. The Supreme Court can only argue whether or not the 14th Amendment applies to the President of the United States.

BTW, entirely predictable dumbfuck Dan Patrick has already threatened retaliation.

I have seen dumb shit from all sides of the political spectrum. Fortunately social media is busily disappearing up its own asshole and the outrage and indignation of early 2023 has already been forgotten.

The world belongs to the normies. The normies don't care for drama. And the more shit like this happens, the less the normies are interested. the whole battle is whether or not Trump is a legitimate political candidate and there is exactly fuckall nothing between now and November that will increase his legitimacy. He's got nowhere to go but down.

Will he still be the Republican candidate? Of course. Will he win?

I really don't think so.