I wonder if the Never Trump die hards realize they have painted themselves into a lose lose position out of unthinking arrogance and petulance?
If Trump wins, they are proven politically irrelevant and impotent.
If Trump loses, they are going to be the scapegoats blamed by everyone on the Right for him losing.
The Hate Trump Always squad has decided to stay in the car and slow roll over the cliff rather than bail out for no other reason then childish petulance and unbridled arrogance.
Oh, there has been plenty of thought. I am ever amazed that you believe someone who lied throughout the campaign about opponents, who repetitively, maliciously, viciously, lied to attack another candidate, his wife, and family, is somehow going to tell YOU the truth and treat YOU with respect.
My, my, aren't you special.
We didn't paint ourselves into a corner.
We stood up for what we believed was right, and still are.
There is a door where we are. It leads to an exit from the GOP, from being stuck on the Republican Plantation and 'forced' to vote for one steaming pile because the other steaming pile is just a little more fragrant. It leads to freedom from the contempt of the GOP masters who have contemptuously ignored principle to do as they please, because 'who else are you going to vote for?' Through that door is the future of America, the departure from bid'ness as usual and the totalitarian creep of the uniparty. Do you have the courage of conviction to leave the plantation?
Or are you going to stay there and keep hot tubbing with all the other froggies in the pot?
You speak of a lose/lose situation, well you are the folks who insisted on it. You're right in that my favored candidate, short of Divine Intervention, is highly unlikely to win the election. But I am voting for more than just a man. I am voting for a Party Platform as well, one which advocates a return to the Constitutional constraints and duties placed on the Federal Government by the Constitution of these United States.
You may have a problem with the Constitution, maybe you don't like it. From appearances, both of the major parties are willing to treat it with contempt. Perhaps that is the future you genuinely want, with one of two candidates who either are ignorant of the Constitution or who see it only as something to be circumvented. But there are other candidates, other choices besides the false dichotomy we have been presented with for a century. There are over 70 political parties in the US, some major, some currently minor, some obscure and going to stay that way. Of these, there are a very few with viable political ideas, but one which bases its party platform directly on the United States Constitution and original intent.
If you wish to keep trying to turn the leftward turning leviathan of the GOP to the right, be my guest. It has become apparent that the people in positions of power within the Party and a significant plurality of those who call themselves Republicans have no desire to return to a Constitutional Republic, otherwise, policy and principles would do more than pay lip service to the concept. The party would not be so quick to attack their own members who have espoused a return to a more Constitutionally authorized Federal Government, nor so adamant about doing so.
I will instead spend my energies building the Party which embraces our Constitution in an effort to return this Nation to a Constitutional Republic and turn it away from the totalitarianism which both major parties have been imposing. That isn't a corner, it isn't lose/lose, it is neither unthinking nor arrogance nor petulance. It is instead a prayerful investment in the future.
If you could show me where you could rationally expect that either of the major parties is on course to return to the Constitutional principle of a limited Federal Government, I'd be all eyes, but I have been looking for decades as both parties are moving in the wrong direction.
Have you considered if Trump wins, the people who supported him will get the blame?
If he loses, those of us who have repeatedly been told how insignificant we are, and how we were neither needed nor desired will, of course, be at fault in the minds of those who have selected this abomination of a candidate, a New York Liberal, to represent the Republican Party, despite telling those who demanded to have him since Iowa and before that he was the wrong candidate to back. I would expect no less than those who have perpetrated this folly blaming someone else for the results they so vocally insisted on, simply because it is in keeping with the nature of people he would have appealed to in the first place.
Those do not include the significant group who will grudgingly vote for him out of fear of the other candidate, but that has ever been the whip with which the GOP overseers have herded voters to the polls to vote for marginal or poor candidates (or more correctly, to vote against their opponents). If your conscience steers you in that direction, then leave those of us who will not go there again in peace.
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your consul, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen.”
— Samuel Adams