Then you weren't really successful, you just thought you were and you got out-played. Same thing can and will happen in third party if it gets big enough.
I hope you learn this before wasting too much of your life
I'm quite old; I learned a great deal along the way, in the trenches, in the middle and near the top; grass roots, local, state and national. It's a very rough and messy business and it doesn't matter what party structure you fight in, it's the same constituency, same tasks, skills and requirements.
But it becomes more difficult when you scale up. What seems easy when you're small becomes quite a challenge when you grow to the size needed to effect state and national politics.
If you're unsuccessful small, you'll never grow; if you are successful small, there's no guarantee you can be successful in growing. But if you can, you can do it within an existing structure much easier than starting from scratch. I believe this is an obvious fact of nature or physics. It's a no-brainer to me.
Thanks for your reply.
The epitaph of the conservative movement within the Republican Party.