“GOP candidates would get about 20,000 votes this year collectively, and it would be the last year the GOP would be a functioning entity.”
I’m not sure of that. If they did the deed within the next month or so, Pence would be the presidential candidate, and the same “conservatives” who voted reluctantly for Romney in 2012 would vote for Pence in November. Most freepers, for example, claim to despise Romney - but they voted for him for president (because the “alternative was worse”). The GOP leadership counts on that kind of sheepleism among the base, and most of the time their expectations are satisfied.
I get your logic, and can’t argue with it.
Trump is our last chance. If he can’t do it, to hell with it.