But they deny and/or excuse his clearly illegal actions, heinous statements, lies, and various other actions. I don't think that's really projecting that much on the larger group.

Well, I really was responding to your suggestion that Republicans lie to themselves in a way that Democrats don't. The "delusional" aspect of it. But I don't think that's true.

Sure, the Republicans will engage in minimizing and excusing the faults of Trump in a way they never would with a Democrat. But that's a common feature of politics. Heck, it's a core feature of humanity - mote in one's eye and beam in yours, and all that.

But Democrats surely don't do that, right? I don't think that's the case. When political power for what you think is the greater good is on the line, you see the same thing. The most glaring recent example was Biden, after the debate performance. While some Democrats were quick to point out that his lack of facility was basically disqualifying for someone running for President, there were plenty of national Democrats (and his supporters in the rank and file) that rushed to his defense. They were completely minimizing his egregious flaws. Biden's egregious flaw was very different from Trump's egregious flaws, but the capacity for minimization crosses the political divide.

I think Republicans generally would agree that Trump is a venal grubby person who is profiting from his office, but differs from other politicians only in degree and baldness of his trading on the power of the office. There aren't any poor ex-Presidents, after all. Trump is declasse and isn't using his power to line up post- Presidency speaking gigs and consulting jobs and the like - he's doing it right now, out front, and much more. Every President lies, every President does things that are later found to be illegal - and while Trump differs in the degree of his self-enrichment and in his willingness to violate longstanding norms in his heinous statements, that's just not a big deal for Republicans compared to him doing what they want in office.

They just don't care very much about that delta. Again, priorities and values. It's more important to them that they have a Republican President, and that's more important to them than Trump's self-enrichment. They don't care, any more than Democrats who supported Biden after he clearly demonstrated that he shouldn't be President cared about that.

BTW, I don't agree with Republicans on this, and I think that these reflect value judgments I find atrocious. I just don't think that this stems from delusion.