It's tough for me to read minds of others, so I can't tell how much the otherwise responsible GOP members think he's a threat to America. However, I viewed him as basically the worst thing that had happened in American politics in a century, so I couldn't fathom how others weren't willing to sacrifice all other causes in the name of stopping him. The GOP elites tried to thread a fine needle of keeping Congress while assuming Hillary would win, whereas I figured it wasn't worth the risk and was willing to see the GOP take massive losses up and down the board by having the elites disavow him.