And good riddance

Right then, right today

Former Bush officials leave the Republican party and blame Trump supporters.

These horrible people failed conservatives and long-ago abandoned any claim to principles they may once have held.

Pete Dupont had it right, three-decades ago.

The moderate Republican Party of the 1970s were basically eighty percenters. They said, 'Democrats, we're for everything you're for--but only 80% of it. Yes, we'd like federal aid education, but not so much. Yes, we can help people on welfare, but not in as expensive a way as you want to do it.' So, as [some wag] once said, 'There wasn't a dime worth of difference between the two parties' and that was true. We were just for a little bit cheaper welfare state.

Newt comes to town and says, 'We're not for the welfare state at all. It's not a question of steering a little to the right, it's a question of turning the whole organization around and going off towards opportunity and individualism as opposed to collective decisions by government.'

The “responsible” Republicans hated the tea party, they hated the Trump party, and they hated, and still hate, the unclimbable. Screw ‘em.