President Trump’s weak performance at his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin was hard for even the president’s most loyal followers to defend.

Inevitably, as with every past embarrassing Trump statement or tweet, his failure to confront Russia over interference in US elections will prompt some in the media to ask whether we’ve finally reached the point at which Republicans will begin to turn on him.

The chorus of Never Trumpers — who make up only a tiny percentage of Republicans but are heavily represented among TV talking heads — will warn that the GOP is doomed and ready for a split.

Now even historians are getting into the act. At Politico, Joshua Zeitz compares contemporary Republicans to the Whigs and Democrats of the 1850s when differences over slavery splintered both factions and led to the creation of a new party — the GOP — that would dominate American politics for the rest of the century.

But while a lot of Republicans are scratching their heads about Trump’s soft stand in Helsinki, expectations that this will set off a rush to the exits are as unrealistic today as they have been in the past whenever the president did something outrageous.

Trump’s support among Republicans remains at record levels, with nearly nine out of 10 Republicans approving of his performance — unmatched in recent polling with the exception of George W. Bush’s ratings in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

That baffles those who have damned Republicans as sheep for sticking with Trump. Some blame it on the influence of conservative outlets like Fox News. Others simply say Republicans are in thrall to a cult of personality.

But these theories have it backwards with respect to Trump and conservatives. On the vast majority of issues, it’s Trump who has discarded his past stands in order to conform with the views of most Republicans, not the other way around.

It’s true that Republicans now support a populist president who is a protectionist and has a soft spot for Russia, positions that most in the party opposed. Yet Trump the longtime liberal on domestic and social issues is now Trump the tax cutter, apostle of deregulation and president who has become a fierce defender of religious liberty and constitutional conservatism.

It may have taken a leap of faith for Republicans to vote for a man bereft of conservative principles or religious convictions, but he kept his promises to them about appointing conservative judges like Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Even on foreign policy, where his isolationist tendencies are a reason for concern, Trump has taken stands that are in accord with that of the pre-2016 party. On the Middle East peace process, Jerusalem and the Iran nuclear deal, Trump has done the bidding of the conservative base, not the reverse.

If some Never Trumpers now oppose Trump on taxes, Iran, climate change and many other issues, it is they who have changed their tune, not other Republicans.

Realignment happened in the 1850s because both the existing major parties were fundamentally split on slavery — the only thing that mattered at the time — rather than on a few issues or a presidential personality.

Some see “resistance” to Trump as the defining issue of our time. But while the left smears the administration as a bastion of white nationalism and makes wildly inappropriate analogies to Hitler and the Nazis, Republicans see a president who has, for the most part, governed like a traditional conservative, not the pre-2015 Donald Trump, let alone an authoritarian or racist dictator.

Republicans who remain loyal to Trump are making a rational decision about an imperfect world and a sometimes-problematic president, not selling their souls.

It’s still theoretically possible that a revelation from the investigation into alleged collusion with Russia will change this. But Trump’s command of the party is unshaken because it is rooted in a common conservative agenda.

While moments like his presser with Putin don’t help, the bad news for Democrats is that with a united party behind him, it would be a mistake to think the GOP is weak or that Trump doesn’t have a fighting chance to be re-elected in 2020.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS.org and a contributor to National Review.