I think that is what happened to the GOP in California. Conservatives were so disgusted with the RINOs that they refused to support them against their Democrat opponents, reasoning that voters would eventually get so disgusted with the Democrats performance in office that they would throw them out and elect real conservatives. Better not to endorse a RINO, they said, but let the Democrats punish the voters with their policies and wait for the voters to get fed up and demand real change.
Unfortunately, after giving up every single statewide office, they are still waiting...
And then there’s Trump.
I didn’t vote for Romney. As atrocious as o was, he had enough of a resistant congress in the last 6 to give some restraint.
Had Romney been in place with a cooperative congress I believe things would’ve been worse by the time we got to 2016.
Trump is only here now due to the preceding O.