Just politically speaking, this is hard to understand.
These Republicans want to go after a candidate who is far and away the front runner for the presidential nomination.
They want to go after a candidate who is extremely popular among the “rank and file” Republican voters.
An intangible in politics, is the enthusiasm factor, or willingness, of people to get involved, making contributions, working on the campaign to get out the vote, etc. How much enthusiasm will there be, among Trump supporters, if these GOP establishment types, work against Trump so they can nominate a candidate who doesn’t have such strong support among “rank and file” Republican voters?
Is suppose the answer from the GOPe would be: “where else are they going to go?”
“Just politically speaking, this is hard to understand.”
It’s much easier to understand once you accept that we are now living under a rigged one party system, effectively.
Trump’s a wild card, but he’s probably the last wild card they need to deal with. Once they get rid of him (if they can), they don’t have to worry anymore about getting elected. If they are members of the “club”, then they’ll be set for life no matter what the voters think about it.