They are trying to save the Republican Party/brand from Trump, who is a danger to it because he says what they all think out loud for everyone to hear.

They can help us save America, not the party they left.

and some of them are progressive, too. The GOP tried to open up the "big tent" and brought in all sorts of alt-righties, teabaggers, neo-conservatives and found themselves put out of the GOP by these barbarians.

Brought it on themselves by holding party over country.

When individuals I know say, "You know, I've thought over what you said about the corruption in the Trump administration and how the Republican-controlled Congress is just standing idly by, and it looks like you're right." Hail fellow, and well met!

When career conservative professionals in the media grudgingly concede that reality actually seems to conform to liberal notions, and that the flaming hypocrisy and corruption that's created their entire public persona may not be in the country's best long-term interests, you damn betcha they're going to get an eye roll (at the very least) from me. They didn't care what I thought before, why should they care what some guy with an internet connection thinks now?

Like Jennifer Rubin's recent admission that the rethug party has turned into what Democrats have been saying. Instead of just focusing on the tRump madness, she's gotta go further back to the late 1970s:

- the moral majority (that was neither)
- the Reagan cult
- Atwater, Rove, Norquist
- Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert

And a couple thousand other things. The rethug behavior she is referring to is not recent.

It can't be just about Trump. It has to be an admission that the GOP is systemically compromised by alternative facts and propaganda.

Trump is a symptom not the disease. Even if they get rid of him, the party is still rotten to the core.

We haven't seen any such yet on the national stage.