I think that's genuinely interesting anecdata (even if Trumpists have changed their mind before), but ultimately the executive decides whether they're going to follow the constitution, not the people that originally voted for them and Congress has been utterly spineless when it comes to other things that play badly with the base like trashing the economy.
And on the original topic, whether Trump ultimately decides to enjoy being kingmaker for the next presumptive nominee (someone's got to be pitching him an Apprentice style TV show...) in order to enjoy a happy retirement is moot when the presumptive nominee for Republican candidacy is going to be someone with similar policy and behaviour extremes. In fact, in some respects the prospects for things like collaborative scientific research if someone who espouses Trumpism but isn't Trump are probably even worse due to them being less incompetent and less straightforward to flatter/bribe into declaring that actually $organization or $country isn't terrible wokes or dangerous criminals after all and they in fact have a very strong relationship. Vance seems to believe some of his schtick. Sure, the successor probably won't be favourites to win a free and fair election in which they're saddled with Trump's mistakes and lack his charisma or cult, but if you're doing medium term planning you can't count on that faction being out of power forever
And on the original topic, whether Trump ultimately decides to enjoy being kingmaker for the next presumptive nominee (someone's got to be pitching him an Apprentice style TV show...) in order to enjoy a happy retirement is moot when the presumptive nominee for Republican candidacy is going to be someone with similar policy and behaviour extremes. In fact, in some respects the prospects for things like collaborative scientific research if someone who espouses Trumpism but isn't Trump are probably even worse due to them being less incompetent and less straightforward to flatter/bribe into declaring that actually $organization or $country isn't terrible wokes or dangerous criminals after all and they in fact have a very strong relationship. Vance seems to believe some of his schtick. Sure, the successor probably won't be favourites to win a free and fair election in which they're saddled with Trump's mistakes and lack his charisma or cult, but if you're doing medium term planning you can't count on that faction being out of power forever