A lot of conservatives — and we do mean a lot of conservatives — have had it with the Republican Party. The ineptitude, the infighting, and the ideological wishy-washiness are longstanding problems in the GOP. The Tea Party’s rise a decade ago was as much a response to this Republican fecklessness as it was to Barack Obama and the Democrats’ spendthrift socialist bonanza. And for decades now there have been not just rumblings but occasional attempts to get a viable third party going. The 2020 election fiasco, which many conservative voters see as the GOP’s woefully insufficient effort to stop a stolen election, is driving talk of a third party yet again with Donald Trump at its head.

Trump reportedly considered the idea of a third party, though he has since done the math and concluded it’s not the right play.

Gary Bauer, who has done a lot of close work with Trump over the last four years and is as pro-Trump as anyone, put it this way: “With the conservative vote divided, the Democrat Party easily dominates. If the country is divided 50/50 and you split the conservative vote, we lose. And that does nothing to advance the conservative cause.”

In fact, Team Trump distanced itself and him personally from the newly organized Patriot Party. “[Donald J. Trump for President Inc.] did not authorize the filing of this Form 1, has not entered into any joint fundraising agreement to fundraise through Patriot Party, and has no knowledge of Patriot Party’s activities whatsoever.”

Moreover, an adviser said Trump’s goal “is to win back the House and Senate for Republicans in 2022.”

That may not fully assuage the anger of millions of grassroots Americans, but it is very nearly straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. And if Trump commits to helping Republicans win again, perhaps there’s hope of mending some fences in a pretty big GOP tent. For better or worse, the GOP is the most likely and ready vehicle for advancing the conservative agenda. Over the next two to four years at least, that’s going to mean doing everything possible to block or slow down the radically left Democrat Party.

To borrow a popular buzz word, that’s going to mean Republicans need some “unity.” And that ought to start with the DC squishes figuring out who they really want to represent.