Riiiight.
The only reason Trump is in office, struggling through the muck wearing chest height waders while trying to drain the swamp, is that people were convinced that even if Trump was on the RINO ticket, voting for him made a difference.
The only reason the scum who have been able to burrow so deeply into the Federal and State governments that a President or Governor has to fight those who in theory serve the Executive in order to change anything is because so many people either don't bother to vote or fall into the trap of believing their vote doesn't matter unless they cast a "protest vote" for a doomed third party candidate to "teach the party a lesson".
The only reason why both of the above are true is because the same media and money machinery that selected, groomed, and put into their jobs the scum now resisting Trump and a great many Republican governors stays in power is because they can convince people to be outside of the two party system where third party votes are useless, wallowing in cynical inaction, or apathetic.
I've said many times, unless people who care about this country are willing to, figuratively speaking, get on with the dirty business of taking over the Republican party establishment trenches on all levels by taking their K-bars, sharpened entrenching tools and hand grenades with them and assaulting the Republican 'go along to get along' trenches to replace those now in charge with patriots, the country is lost.
Abandon the Republican Party? Sure, and do what? Take over the Democrat Party? No, wave your arms, yell, and brag about your "protest vote". Something the machine is designed to deal with. Don't bother trying to upset the delicate balance the machinery relies on, do something totally predictable the "permanent government" knows exactly how to deal with.
Read some history. Start with American Revolution, and focus on just how many battles the victor in a war can lose but still win the war. The key is not falling apart into factions but staying the course as one body dedicated to winning the war.
You might also want to meditate on what you mean by "Conservatives" since those who claim that name haven't conserved a damn thing in the past sixty years and for the most part, didn't even try to conserve anything.
have a nice day
“is that people were convinced that even if Trump was on the RINO ticket, voting for him made a difference.”
To a very large degree, you are wrong.
Even here on Free Republic, many will not support change from within the Republican party, because of their fear... Fear of being called ugly names by the left.
Judge Roy Moore of Alabama was smeared HERE with the same talking points used by the MSM. Once the election was thrown by the Republican party, the accusers silently disappeared.
There are those HERE who say our President cannot fire Rod Eisenstein because Paul Ryan will retaliate... There’s no reason for Paul Ryan, but that a better man was slandered HERE and elsewhere as an anti-Semite.
There’s no changing the Republican party from the stupid-appeaser party so long as there are so many stupid appeasers supporting more of the same.
I no longer believe that “voting” makes a damn bit of difference.