Putting it bluntly
Why has [Nikki] Haley come out so strongly in favor of Trump? Why has [Mark] Sanford given up the fight for the nomination? Because both of them accept something that the remaining Never Trump Republicans simply refuse to admit to themselves: The party they once knew and loved, the party that I once admired (while also dissenting from it in numerous areas of policy), is dead and gone, replaced by a party whose voters strongly, overwhelmingly support the presidency of Donald Trump.
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Jonah Goldberg, Michael Gerson, and George F. Will could talk the ghost of Ronald Reagan himself into challenging Trump in 2020, and Trump would trounce him.
I checked out of the GOP in January of 2005 for reasons, not surprisingly, independent of Trumpism. I haven’t regretted my decision, but I regret the even worse fate that has befallen my former political home over the last four years.