From personal experience all I can say is once one sees the evil it's hard to unsee and go back to denial with these anti American liars, grifters, and thieves and their many useful idiots that parrot them.
That’s true. Some of these mushy GOPers were just hypocrites, but no doubt some of them genuinely thought that always compromising with the Dems was for the good of the country, etc., etc. And suddenly they’re seeing the reality, which is that they were dealing with the Devil, who has no interest in the good of the country. And they’re finding that Old Scratch gets really mad when people want to stop dealing with him.