“In his recent book Thank You for Your Servitude, my colleague Mark Leibovich quoted a former Republican representative who bluntly summarized his party's plan for dealing with Trump: 'We're just waiting for him to die.' As it turns out, this is not an uncommon sentiment. In my conversations with Republicans, I heard repeatedly that the least disruptive path to getting rid of Trump, grim as it sounds, might be to wait for his expiration.

”Their rationale was straightforward: The former president is 76 years old, overweight, appears to maintain the diet of a college freshman, and believes, contrary to all known science, that exercise is bad for you. Why risk alienating his supporters when nature will take its course sooner or later? Peter Meijer, a former Republican representative who left office this month, termed this strategy actuarial arbitrage.

“'You have a lot of folks who are just wishing for [Trump's] mortal demise,' Meijer told me. 'I want to be clear: I'm not in that camp. But I've heard from a lot of people who will go onstage and put on the red hat, and then give me a call the next day and say, ”I can't wait until this guy dies.“ And it's like, Good Lord.'”

-- from “Republicans' 2024 Magical Thinking,” by McKay Coppins, on The Atlantic site. Coppins adds that though Trump turns 77 this year, his mother lived to be 88, his father 93, “so this strategy isn't exactly foolproof.”

I'm sure it'll all work out fine, GOP.