(CNN)Retiring Ohio Rep. Anthony Gonzalez told CNN's Jake Tapper something over the weekend that crystallized a question I keep coming back to when it comes to the Republican party's continuing loyalty to former President Donald Trump.

       "The cold hard truth is Donald Trump led us into a ditch on January 6," Gonzalez, who was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for his conduct on January 6, told Tapper. "The former President lied to us. He lied to every one of us and in doing so he cost (Republicans) the House, the Senate and the White House."

       Yes! This!

       Politics has always been a bit of a rough game. Politicians who win -- and help others win -- are lauded. Those who don't, well, aren't. It's transactional.

       That reality is why I assumed that following Trump's 2020 loss, there would be a significant reckoning within the party about the last four years -- and a turning away from Trump.

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       After all, that he oversaw -- and contributed to -- Republican losses is indisputable.

       In 2018, Republicans lost 40 House seats -- and the House majority -- in an election that Democrats successfully turned into a referendum on Trump. (That Trump's approval ratings was stuck in the low 40s in the run-up to that election effectively sealed Republicans' fate.)

       Two years later, Trump not only lost the presidency convincingly but also likely cost Republicans their Senate majority by spending the months after the election talking almost exclusively about (his lie of) how he was cheated out of victory. Democrats won two runoffs in Georgia while Trump was distracting the party base and, in so doing, recaptured the Senate majority.

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       So, Trump came into office in 2016 with Republicans in the majority in the House and Senate. He left office in 2020 with Republicans totally out of power in the executive and legislative branches.

       That record of losses should -- if history was any guide -- leave such a stench of defeat around Trump that no one in the party would want to be around him much less have him as their de facto leader.

       And yet, here we are.

       What gives?

       The most obvious explanation for how Trump has managed to win despite losing is that he, well, never admits that he has lost.

       After the 2018 midterms, Trump tweeted that he had "received so many Congratulations from so many on our Big Victory last night." Later he tweeted that "those that worked with me in this incredible Midterm Election, embracing certain policies and principles, did very well."

       In the aftermath of his 2020 loss, Trump has spent months propagating the lie that there was widespread voter fraud that cost him a win. (Note: There wasn't.)

       Trump's willingness to say up is down -- and for large parts of the Republican base to take his word for it -- appears to have created an ahistoric moment for the Republican party: They are following a man who oversaw widespread setbacks for the party over the last four years. And more than that: They want him to run for president again in 2024!