I sympathize with your unhappiness as an intelligent conservative but we are here for a reason.

In other countries, where you have very diverse opinions you have many, diverse parties. In the United States, the two largest parties keep bulking up with sub-groups that only tolerate each other because they are in opposition to the other big party.

And therein lies the deeper problem.

If you based your views purely on opposition, any attempt to reform one party is taken by the other party as a moment of weakness to exploit.

There is a reason for everything, and if you lay the blame of the rise of demagogues at the feet of the Republican Party you aren’t any closer to understanding or solving the problem.