Think about it—with this election cycle, many of the core GOP's plan to win back the presidency in 2016, was to double down, arguing that neither Romney nor, before him, McCain, in the preceding elections were conservative enough.
And as Trump began to dominate the primaries, the conservatives plaintively tried to make the point that Trump was not a true conservative, with the most prominent broadside being an issue of the National Review making the case.
In other words, the conservative plank couldn't even make it past the GOP primaries!
