When you spend as much time as I do paying attention to politics, you hear all sorts of far-fetched predictions. Most of these never come true. Some do (see: Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate). But some of these are interesting to speculate about, whether or not you think the chances that they'll come true are very high or not. Which leads me to today's subject: will the Republican Party survive, post-Trump, or will it splinter into two factions?

Now, admittedly, this a perennial thought -- for both parties. Divisions are sometimes stark between party factions, and sometimes the internal arguments get downright vicious (civil wars are always the bloodiest, in other words). When they do, the prediction that the party is on the brink of permanent division always pops up. And then never goes on to become reality.

Is this time different? It certainly feels different, that's for sure. I have previously seen a political party run away from its own presidential nominee (1996, Republicans, Bob Dole), but even then Republicans weren't openly denouncing their candidate -- or even publicly stating that they couldn't support him at all. That is new. Some Republicans have been denouncing Trump from the very beginning, some began when he looked like he was going to wrap up his party's nomination, and some only began last weekend, after the disastrous Billy Bush tape went public.

USA Today has counted all of them up, and now reports that fully one-fourth of Republicans who hold high office have now dumped Trump. The numbers get even larger if you include former officeholders (who aren't ever going to face re-election again). That is flat-out unprecedented, folks. Paul Ryan has told his party's House members that it is "every person for him- or herself." That's not unprecedented (see: Dole), but it isn't exactly normal. The Republican National Committee has apparently spent zero dollars on broadcast advertising since Trump became their nominee. The schism within the party is wide, and deep.

Now, normally parties regroup after an election, bury any remaining hatchets in a show of unity, and then attempt to move forward. Many Republicans not currently backing Trump are hoping this happens the way it usually does, post-Trump. This may be unrealistic, or a downright fantasy. Because even if Trump goes gently into that good night (apologies to Dylan Thomas), his supporters will remain in the GOP ranks. They're not going anywhere, to put it another way.

If Donald Trump actually wins the presidency (four weeks is a long time in politics, and anything at all could happen), the likelihood of a permanent party split would probably shrink. Republicans in Congress would unify in the attempt to define Trump's agenda themselves. They'd figure that Trump would likely sign just about anything they could pass -- and they might actually be right about that. Trump isn't really invested all that deeply in most of his campaign promises, and he's shown he's about as flexible as can be on his various policy stances, so a Republican Congress could indeed be fairly successful at steering the policy agenda -- as long as they tossed Trump a few bones, such as (perhaps) building his beloved border wall. The prospect of passing all their pet legislation would be a strong unifying force, and people like Paul Ryan would argue that it was time to stand together and take control of the agenda. That would likely be a convincing argument to most Republicans in Congress.

But should Trump lose (as is increasingly likely to be the case), the party's division is not just going to fade quickly away. How Trump handles a massive electoral loss would influence this, of course. He could gracefully concede (hey, anything's possible, right?). He could claim the whole thing was rigged, and refuse to stop fighting (he loves suing people, remember). Or he could do what many already suspect would be his next step and create a new media empire to challenge Fox News -- from the right. This might be the worst possible outcome for the Republican Party, because it would give the Trump supporters a gigantic megaphone to continue to rally their cause. And a big part of that cause will be placing blame for Trump's loss at the feet of all the Republicans who didn't wholeheartedly back Trump.

Could the Republican Party survive this? Or would it split into two parties as a result? Could a "Radical Republicans" party leave the GOP and back pro-Trumpian candidates from that point on? Or would the shoe be on the other foot -- would "Reasonable Republicans" (or perhaps "Real Republicans") have to be the ones who left the GOP to form their own party? Either way (and whatever party names they decide upon), will the Republican Party as we know it today survive Donald Trump?

While it's impossible for me to predict the chances of such a major political shift, at this point it has to at least be considered a possibility. Trump has gotten as far as he has by being a master at stoking fear, anger, and resentment among millions of Republican voters. If he loses, my guess is that they're going to be even angrier afterwards. They are not going to be in any sort of unifying mood, to put it mildly. The GOP tried to paper over the whole Tea Party phenomenon after the 2012 election, but all of their prescriptions for improving their party's presidential chances were utterly ignored (the infamous "autopsy" document). This time around, any attempt to suggest that maybe Trump lost because his ideas are abhorrent to more people than support them is not going to be any more effective than when the party leaders attempted to point this out back in 2012.

The so-called deplorables (they've even now embraced this label themselves) may have reached a level of disgust with their own party's leadership that cannot be reconciled in any way other than forming their own political party. Whether they complete their takeover of the Republican Party brand or whether they create their own moniker, the division may run too deep this time for any unity effort to possibly fix.

Political parties change over time, as they adapt to the shifting realities of public opinion. For instance, I haven't heard much GOP politicking on gay rights or marriage equality this time around (outside of North Carolina's bathroom fight, that is). Republicans lost that battle, and then they realized that it was a huge losing issue for them in the future as well. Smart Republicans just stopped talking about it altogether out on the campaign trail. When's the last time you heard a GOP candidate proudly proclaim his support for marriage being defined solely as "between a man and a woman," after all? That sort of talk has all but disappeared, these days. So parties can and do evolve, when forced.

But that only has happened because the realization that the issue was such a losing one sank in among Republican politicians. It's going to be much harder for GOP politicians to do the same on Trump's signature issues. Especially if he's out there with his own television and media empire, continually fanning the xenophobic flames. Republicans trying to convince their own voters that these issues are losing ones among the general public will have a hard time doing so, and even that's being charitable.

Even if you remove the xenophobia from the equation (if that were even possible), Trump has awakened a sleeping giant -- blue-collar workers who are finally figuring out that the standard Republican answer for everything ("We're going to give your boss another big tax cut!") has just not made their lives better and is not going to make their lives better in the future. The same blue-collar workers that were once called "Reagan Democrats" may become "Trump Republicans" no matter what the party elites have to say about it. They may begin demanding some actual policies to improve their lives -- which would be about the only positive long-term result from Trump's campaign. Perhaps the Trump Republicans will become the "Workingman's Party," although to successfully do that they'd have to broaden their policy ideas beyond just "stop all immigration and pull out of free trade deals."

Right now the Republican Party elites are pretty confident that they'll be able to put the genie back in the bottle after the dust settles from the election. They're complacently telling each other they'll be able to reconstruct the party after Trump departs, and rework it so that it will be much more competitive and appealing in the future. But there's a big problem with this scenario -- not only would they have to marginalize the more reactionary (read: Tea Party) of their own officeholders, they'd also have to somehow remold a large segment of their own base voters. This may prove to be impossible to achieve.

Even if Donald Trump fades from the GOP spotlight entirely, there are a whole lot of ambitious Republican politicians very closely watching his campaign's success. Even if he doesn't win the presidency, Trump certainly did a bang-up job of capturing the party's presidential nomination. What these politicians are all wondering is: "Could someone with far less personal baggage than Trump ride that wave all the way to the White House?" Laying the path to achieve this would mean filing the rough edges off of Trump's agenda and repackaging it with a more-electable candidate. Which would mean pushing Trump's agenda starting right away, in next year's Congress. After all, it worked wonders for Trump, right?

Even if the Republican Party doesn't actually split into two, and even if Trump disappears from public life, there is still going to be a rather large Trump wing of the GOP. Millions of voters aren't going to just forget their grievances or resentment. They'll be open to a new champion who mirrors Trump's appeal (again, without his personal baggage). The division within the GOP is now running too deep for too many people to just smile and bury the hatchet afterwards. And if Trump further fans the flames after the election and places the blame for his loss on Republicans who didn't sufficiently support him, his supporters are going to be in no mood for any party unity any time soon -- unless that means unifying around their own party, completely separate from the Republican Party.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant