After Donald Trump sparked another week of turmoil, prompting President Barack Obama to question how Republicans can continue to support him, even the Republicans most critical of him remain unwilling to embrace his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
But they have no consistent notion of what to do instead.
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Interviews with a dozen GOP activists who worked to block Donald Trump's nomination reveal that their efforts have largely disbanded and scattered since their defeat at the Republican National Convention. Now, some are biting their tongues and supporting Trump. Some are fleeing the party altogether. Others are lining up behind Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld, both moderate former GOP governors. Only a few are doing the unthinkable: reluctantly backing Clinton.
"All we can do is hang on for dear life and hope for the best," said Steve Lonegan, whose Courageous Conservatives PAC attempted to whip anti-Trump delegates at the convention.
Lonegan had pledged to choose Trump over Clinton if he couldn't prevent the mogul's nomination, and he said Monday that he's reluctantly in Trump's corner for one reason: the Supreme Court vacancy. But don't expect him to publicly advocate his position: "I'm done in the public realm," he said.
The hopelessness and despair of the anti-Trump crowd grew even more acute this week amid a series of Trump camp controversies that embroiled his campaign. With each new snafu — from inviting Russian cyber-spies to meddle in the election to disparaging the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq — the anti-Trump crowd's indignation grows. But they've largely been reduced to trolling Trump on Twitter, encouraging conservatives to reject their nominee and resisting pressure to fall in line.
Sally Bradshaw, a longtime confidant of the Bush family and veteran GOP strategist, made a sudden exit from the Republican Party this week and suggested she’d vote for Clinton in Florida if the race is close. The move, first reported by CNN and confirmed to POLITICO, was a last burst of fury at the party’s embrace of Trump. She declined to say whether she hopes others follow her out.
“Leaving the Party was a personal decision for me and I'm sad about it,” Bradshaw said in an email, declining to answer further questions about the decision.
Her announcement was quickly followed Tuesday morning by Republican Rep. Richard Hanna’s declaration of support for Clinton. And later in the day, Maria Comella, a former top political aide to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, threw in with Clinton as well.
But while they're split on what to do next, the former anti-Trump leaders and allies reveal they're united in one thing: mounting frustration. So desperate are they for an alternative that some are even clinging to a hope that voters will deliver just enough support third party competitors to create the unlikeliest of outcomes: a race in which neither major party candidate wins the Electoral College. That would kick the election to the House of Representatives, which would choose the president (a scenario satirized by HBO's "Veep" but a near impossibility in real life).
"Vote for the libertarian ticket and maybe we can deny Trump or Hillary the nomination and get it over to Congress and they can save us," said Jarrod White, an Arizona Republican and former leader of the anti-Trump effort at last month's Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
But even with a scattershot collection of strategies, anti-Trump movement leaders acknowledge there’s not much to do but focus on the long-term.
"We're three months away from an election. I don't think that they're going to be able to do anything purposeful," said Regina Thomson, a Colorado GOP activist who led the anti-Trump "Free the Delegates" effort at last month's Republican National Convention.
Thomson said she's turned her attention to long-term attempts to reform the party, convinced that "half-cocked" efforts to push third party candidates will be fruitless. She's among the GOP activists who say they'll simply turn their backs on the presidential election — convinced Trump will lose on his own — and focus on ensuring Republican wins in the House and Senate.
"I don’t plan to rally around another candidate. I have other things keeping me busy. But I do want to be part of the 'resistance' so to speak, so that when the dust settles I can be part of rebuilding an actual conservative majority in our party and our country," said Katie Packer, a Republican strategist who fought Trump during the primary.
Packer's onetime cohort Tim Miller — who handled communications for Bush's short-lived GOP candidacy — has been consistently hostile toward Trump on social media and in regular television appearances. He said he's been part of preliminary talks to support anti-Trump Republicans in Congress facing tough reelection battles, from Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk to Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo. But there's nothing formal yet.
For now, he said, "I'm just a guy with a Twitter."
Eric Minor, another "Free the Delegates" leader from Washington state, said his anti-Trump advocacy has been relegated to Facebook since the convention. "Not sure where I go from here besides not voting for Trump this November (or Hillary either)," he said in an email. "I will also consider walking away completely and considering the party too broken/corrupt to fix."
Anti-Trump Republicans were energized once again on Monday, when Trump escalated a multi-day feud with the family of a Muslim-American soldier that criticized his immigration policy at last week's Democratic National Convention. Hours later, Bradshaw's decision to abandon the Republican Party – less than four years after she co-authored the party's post-2012 autopsy to diagnose its failures – also generated another fevered debate among Republican insiders about the effect of Trump's candidacy. But their fury inevitably leads to resignation at the lack of options.
"It is Mr. Trump who is making unification of the party difficult," said South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford, in an email to POLITICO. "Each new altercation brings with it more concern from the voters I speak with on why unification around him is growing more and more difficult."
Sanford said Trump's ability to draw media attention may have helped his primary bid, but "They do not win the hearts and minds of the independent voter essential in a two way contest."
A handful of Republican delegates to last month's convention warned of a coming "purge" by pro-Trump GOP leaders of those who tried to rebel against him. Though several anti-Trump delegates told POLITICO they had yet to face any explicit calls to be removed from state and county GOP positions, they're still worried it's coming.
Beau Corell, a Virginia Republican and prominent Trump critic, said he's working with his former "Free the Delegates" allies to fight local Republican parties that are empowered to marginalize conservatives who refuse to support Trump. Several states, including Virginia, he said, include mechanisms in party rules that permit the party to eject members who publicly speak against their nominee, sometimes for years.
"If Donald Trump does stupid stuff, conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists should be able to say 'we're tired of this guy doing stupid stuff,'" Corell said. "These individuals should not incur penalty from the GOP for speaking their mind."
Corell worried that conservatives dispirited by their failure to unseat Trump would also flee the party of their own volition, as Bradshaw did on Monday. That, he argued, is the wrong approach.
"Unlike some people who believe it's time for principled conservatives to leave the party," he said. "I believe now more than ever that when the pendulum swings back in November, conservatives must be in positions to help correct this problem and fight for their values."
White, the Arizona delegate, said the greatest vindication for increasingly "disengaged" anti-Trump forces will be a Trump loss in November.
"They'll feel vindicated if Hillary wins," he said. "They're going to be like 'I told you so,' and they're going to take the next four years and shove it into the face of every person who supported Trump."
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