Robin Abcarian ends her piece on former President Trump's continued support in the GOP, despite his explicitly authoritarian behavior, with two questions: Are Republicans rational? And, do they care?

My answer is that Republicans are rational, and they do care.

They think they are getting what they want: an authoritarian leader who is anti-democracy, racist, sexist and vengeful.

Too many journalists seem to discount this, believing that once these voters know more, they will abandon Trump. My advice is to listen to his supporters, and you will know they are getting what they want.

If he is convicted and even imprisoned, he will be in a better position to get the support of various miscreants. And such will occur as these people pass themselves off as freedom lovers and patriots.

Barry M. Dank, Palm Desert

..

To the editor: About one-third of the U.S. electorate supports Trump. It does no good to characterize all these folks as irrational.

A better approach may be to consider that their opinions may have a rational basis, and then try to understand how they arrive at their conclusions.

America is simply not working for many folks. Many members of the Republican base are in a state of desperation, where it is natural to want to shake things up and make a new start. Trump understands this.

Republican voters may worry about subverting democracy, but they may quite rationally give higher priority to improving their own prospects.

To me, the central issue is income inequality and the role of the tax code in making it worse. A sustainable society needs to offer hope, opportunity and a safety net to those who need one.

Catering to the billionaire class does not accomplish this. The tax breaks available to those who can navigate the system reward both Democrats and Republicans alike, making it extremely difficult to make headway on tax reform.

But this would be a good place to start.

60 percent of GOP voters would pick Trump in primary: Poll

Former President Trump is maintaining a comfortable lead in the GOP primary, with 60 percent of Republicans saying in a new poll that they would pick Trump in the primary race.

The new NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ News poll found that 60 percent of Republicans would back the former president in the GOP primary. About 21 percent of independent voters also said they would vote for Trump if their state’s primary race was held today.

Regardless of party affiliation, the poll also found that men were more likely than women to support the former president. Thirty-five percent of men said they would back Trump, compared to about 28 percent of women saying the same.

While Trump remains the clear front-runner in the GOP primary, the race for second place has become neck-in-neck in recent weeks. About 11 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) if the primary was held today, and about 10 percent said they would back former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.

DeSantis and Haley are the closest GOP challengers to the former president in the poll. Conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy received about 6 percent of Republicans’ support and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie received about 3 percent of support.

Neither North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum nor former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson received more than 1 percent of Republican support, according to the new poll.

When asked who they would choose if their first-choice candidate was not on the ballot, 11 percent said they would vote for Trump, 36 percent said they would vote for DeSantis, about 15 percent would vote for Ramaswamy about 14 percent said they would vote for Haley.

This comes just ahead of the fourth GOP presidential debate on Thursday, where the White House hopefuls will attempt to make an impression on voters as Trump remains the party’s favorite. The former president is not expected to appear on the debate stage.

The poll was conducted among 3,200 registered voters from Nov. 26 to Nov. 27 and has a margin of error of two percentage points.