I like the article but I think you are being a little cynical and would dispute a few points.

Firstly, the point is the outrage. Republican supporters don’t really care about policy, even wall building and judges. What they care about is that the ‘Libs are owned’, and that things don’t change any more culturally (eg trans bathrooms or sports). A subtle candidate wouldn’t win because he wasn’t owning the libs and RINOs enough. Dog whistles aren’t enough Anymore.

Secondly, the outrage provokes support and opposition in equal measure. The base grows and so do the new and united voters opposing that new movement. This is what happened in 2020.

A Republican non-incumbent presidential candidate has not won a presidential election since 1988. This brings us to the third point and that is that both at low engagement and high engagement, more people are voting democrats than Republicans and that divide is growing every year.

There are only three ways Republicans can win (overall) elections nowadays:

1. The political systems. This Gerrymandering for the house, rural states in the senate and the EC for the presidency.
2. Anti-democratic legislation such as voter id and restrictions to voting that mostly affect democrats.
3. An election with high Republican engagement and low democrat engagement. This is very hard to do but is actually achievable by Republicans in mid terms often by default and by running really boring election campaigns (they struggle with this now). This results in low democrat engagement and medium Republican engagement.

I therefore only see your scenario playing out if the EC goes really bad in 2024/2028 or the democrats run someone as unpopular as H Clinton. Any longer than that and there won’t be enough authoritarian republican voters left.