What makes that more painful is that there were not all that long ago. Depends on your perspective of course as to what "not all that long" means, but people like Elliot Richardson, Lowell Weicker, Bill Weld (before he want off the deep end), etc. would have been driven out of the GOP by now.
This nightmare didn’t happen suddenly, overnight. The “good” ones surely saw what was happening and remained silent. Trump took advantage of a party he knew was already criminal. They laid the groundwork for him over decades, then just fell in line.
Oh, obviously it didn't. In 1986 I was working on a Republican congressional campaign. The NRCC sent out cassette tapes (yes, actually) with advice for candidates. That was the first time I heard the name Newt Gingrich and by the time the tape was done I was saying, "This guy is nuts."
Exactly. They weren’t blind to what they were being led into. Every one that was held up as decent or moderate was pure bullshit - a schtick they knew would work for a few of them. No one should forget “moderate”, “faithful” Romney was a vulture capitalist that destroyed companies & lives for money