I wish you were right, but I have been waiting for this for years. I am tired of it. The RINOS are often indisguishible from the Elephants. There is nothing that says either “Conservative” or “Constitutionalist”. Let the RINOs have the Elephant party. Why is it so difficult to start a new party? Get rid of the old sloth. The Peggy Noonans and other cocktail republicans.
Let’s put it this way, look at the overall history of third party’s taking over versus reform within a party and tell me what is most successful. Parties reform and change themselves from within all the time, generally, every 20-30 years or so, parties go through an ideological resurgence (pretty measurable cycle directly coinciding with new generations.) You generally have establishments for a generation with a new generation rebelling against that establishment, getting power, creating establishment that veers off course, then a new generation comes back and rebels again against that establishment..
Third parties, on the other hand, only make real impact once every century and a half or so (if you count the origin of the Republican party, which many would say where never really a ‘third party’.)
Based on history, the Republican party is due for another value resurgence like we had in 1979-1980.
The only way a new party has ever grown to win elections in this country is if there was only one other party in existence. So long as the GOP is running candidates it is a practical impossibility to have a new major party.