A few days ago, CNN ran a story about the reluctance of many Republicans to say they'll endorse Donald Trump in 2020. In a column for The Washington Post on Friday, Joe Scarborough seized on this:

... these ... morally enfeebled enablers have become muted when asked whether they’ll support their fearless leader’s reelection bid.

“Look, I’m focused on opioids,” muttered Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander, suggesting that a U.S. senator is not mentally adept enough to fight a drug epidemic while also figuring out whether he backs a president in his own party. Alexander is not the only GOP senator to offer up tortured answers to this simple question.

Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (Tex.) refused to answer, explaining that he had not given the question much thought because things could change in the time before the 2020 campaign revs up.

Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Corker (Tenn.) spent four days grasping for an answer to a question he called “unfair” before finally saying he didn’t want to “make news.”

Scarborough thinks this is a sign that Trump won't run in 2020.

It’s becoming clear that Trump will not be running for president in 2020....

Now, even Trump’s most steadfast allies are quietly admitting that the Southern District of New York’s investigation poses an existential threat to his future, both politically and legally.

No, that's not what they're quietly admitting. They're quietly admitting that Trump's downfall might happen between now and 2020. They know it's a serious possibility, and they don't want a statement of support to appear in print or on tape now, one that can be used against them in the future, when Trump is a pariah.

But they also don't have the courage to say that they oppose the president, because they're certain he'll survive until November 2018 and it's a serious possibility that he'll survive until November 2020.

Mitt Romney -- who was forced into a Senate primary yesterday when hard-liners in the Utah GOP refused to endorse his candidacy -- has joined them in bet-hedging.

Mitt Romney said Saturday that he could not yet commit to supporting Donald Trump's 2020 re-election campaign....

"I will make that decision down the road," Romney ... said in an interview with CNN.... "As a person of political experience, if I endorse someone, I'll want to know what's in it for Utah and what help would he provide for us on key priorities in Utah."

"So I'm not a cheap date," he said.

But if Trump isn't driven from office and mounts a reelection bid, most if not all of them will come around. Even the first Republican to say he intends to primary Trump -- thriller writer Brad Thor -- will probably endorse him in the end:

Conservative author and commentator Brad Thor took to Twitter Saturday to announce he would challenge President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020.

The New York Times bestselling author of the popular Scot Harvath series of spy thrillers was a vociferous critic of Trump’s during the 2016 primaries and has continued speaking out against the president’s leadership style.

Yup, Thor was a Never Trumper during the 2016 primaries as well -- so much so that he got his buddy Glenn Beck suspended from satellite radio for a time after making comments that some interpreted as a call for the assassination of Trump.

SirusXM satellite radio has suspended conservative talk show host Glenn Beck for comments he made last week that have been interpreted as potentially advocating the harm of presumptive Republican presidential nominee and real estate mogul Donald Trump.

During a May 25 interview on “The Glenn Beck Program,” Beck agreed with a comment made by New York Times bestselling thriller author Brad Thor:

“I am about to suggest something very bad,” Thor said. “... With the feckless, spineless Congress we have, who will stand in the way of Donald Trump overstepping his constitutional authority as president? If Congress won’t remove him from office, what patriot will step up and do that if, if, he oversteps his mandate as president, his constitutional-granted authority, I should say, as president,” Thor said, according to CNN. “If he oversteps that, how do we get him out of office? And I don’t think there is a legal means available. I think it will be a terrible, terrible position the American people will be in to get Trump out of office because you won’t be able to do it through Congress.”

“I would agree with you on that,” Beck responded.

But even Thor came around to Trump at the time of the convention, if only reluctantly.

Brad Thor, who has been in the #NeverTrump camp since the beginning and is a respected conservative author, came to this realization on Tuesday, throwing his support behind Mr. Trump. It wasn’t a pretty endorsement, but it was an endorsement all the same.

“Yesterday, Dr. [Hugh] Hewitt tried (yet again) to help guide America to the best (and only) option available to us. I lost a lot of sleep last night reading and then re-reading his words. I awoke this morning with a more nuanced view. Drug #1 (Hillary Clinton) will kill us — no question. Drug #2 (Donald Trump) might kill us, but it also might: A) Slow the cancer, or even B) Cure the cancer,” Mr. Thor wrote in HotAir.com....

“It’s a lot to hope for, I know, but hope is all we have left. We have exhausted every other avenue. Make no mistake — I believe one hundred percent in standing on principle. Principle, in this case though, will not cure cancer. Sadly, that crappy clinic south of the border is starting to look like our only option,” he wrote.

Thor is anti-Trump again, but he has no political experience, and he's not going to beat Trump in a primary -- nor is anyone else -- because the GOP base loves Trump and will continue to love Trump as long as he's in office and out of prison (and maybe even if those things are no longer true). So after Thor crashes and burns -- in Iowa or New Hampshire or on Super Tuesday, if he runs at all -- he'll endorse the winner, because, in his opinion, the Democrat will be so evil he'll have no choice.

But won't Romney be a holdout again? By that time he'll almost certainly have survived his primary and a general election, coasting to victory in both. He won't be up for reelection until 2024. Why should he worry about endorsing Trump?

Because this time around it's highly likely that the Democratic nominee will be a person no one regards as a centrist. It will probably be someone who talks a lot more like Bernie Sanders (it could even be Bernie Sanders) and a lot less like 1990s Bill Clinton. Never Trump Republicans who want to maintain political viability will be horrified by all the left-wing talk -- free college! $15 minimum wage! Marijuana leglaization! Rolling back the Trump tax cuts on the wealthy! Medicare for All, or at least a Medicare or Medicaid buy-in! It's all socialism!

(And yes, I know: Hillary Clinton ran on a platform that was quite progressive. But for whatever reason, nobody believed her. They'll believe the 2020 Democratic nominee.)

In addition, if Trump survives, this time around the skeptics will believe that he can win (which he can). So they won't dare oppose him this time if he's the nominee.

If Trump's still around, they'll fold. Just wait.