There have been numerous points during Donald Trump’s magical mystery ride to the presidency at which conventional wisdom held that the core of the conservative movement would stand up against him. However, like a dwindling army where each solider is waiting for the guy next to him to lead the charge, that has never really happened.

After everyone saw what happened to Mitt Romney and Marco Rubio, and with “conservative” media training most of its cover fire on Trump’s conservative critics rather than on the liberal conman leading a coup of the Republican Party, any resistance has been both tepid and temporary. Rather than choosing one hill on which to die, it has been a coward’s death by a thousand cuts.

Most conservatives have been whistling past the graveyard. Relying on wishful thinking and the blind belief that there is just no way that Trump could end up being worse than the hated Hillary Clinton would have been. They have, while occasionally holding their breath at what they are witnessing, convinced themselves that this is all going to turn out just fine.