Conservatives who would pursue such a course should be clear-eyed about both its risks and its goals. Theirs will be a thankless task, and its chances of success will be limited. Only if the objective is to prevent the Republican party from losing its identity forever as the only viable political party in America dedicated to limited government, personal responsibility, and free markets is this a worthy endeavor. If those are the agreed-upon stakes, then the choice for conservatives might not be a difficult one. To save the party, they’ll have to break it.

The most insurmountable impediment on the path of these conservative insurrectionists might not be any of the above hurdles but the elusive hope that Trump may still be stopped by one of the two remaining anti-Trump candidates in the race — Ted Cruz, in particular. That hope is not entirely unfounded — the prospect of a contested nominating convention is more realistic today than ever before in this election cycle. Nonetheless, if the hope that Cruz can somehow emerge the nominee after multiple ballots diminishes the urgency of this splinter group’s mission, then indulging such optimism would be a mistake.

There is no assurance that Trump will not become the nominee at the convention even if he fails to reach the necessary delegate threshold outright before he arrives in Cleveland. Moreover, even if Cruz were to emerge the consensus candidate on a second or third ballot, the GOP’s identity could be damaged beyond salvation should Trump’s supporters make good on their threats to “burn the place down.” The two-party dynamic is a remarkably resilient force in American politics, and the GOP has survived internecine breakups in the past. Still, the more the Republican party comes to be associated with Trumpism, the more the work of reclaiming the party seem like a wasted effort.