It doesn’t sound like there was much to be encouraged about at the “Never Trump” Principles First Summit at the Conrad Hotel in Washington DC this past weekend. Their panel names told the story: “Looking to 2024: Hope and Despair — but Mostly Despair”, “Can the GOP survive?”

Maybe the one ray of light in the collection of former Iraq War cheerleaders was their determination to debate if Ron DeSantis is possibly a worse potential president than Donald Trump. It is so hard to feel any sympathy for this crowd:

“It turns out that once you let the toothpaste out of the tube, so to speak, demagoguery and bigotry and all that, some people like it. It’s hard to get it back.” [Bill] Kristol said. “You can’t just give them a lecture.”

Jesse Helms and Lee Atwater never bothered these folks, but they think Trump is responsible for their problems.

At least for now, they’re allies of anyone who wants America to stay on the rails, but they’re not the kind of allies you want. They’re pathetically weak and completely lacking in confidence. If their lack of self-awareness is appalling, their trustworthiness is more so. But consider the alternative.

The people who convened at the Conrad have little in common with those who attended the Trump coronation ceremony down the river at CPAC. The latter aired a music video of a song the Jan. 6 defendants recorded from prison. The former gave Michael Fanone, the former D.C. police officer who was brutally attacked on Jan. 6, an award (after which he hung around to sign copies of his new book) and introduced Kinzinger, who was one of two Republicans on Congress’s committee investigating the attacks, as its “patron saint.”

I guess I’m glad they’re trying to get organized. Despite myself, I can’t help rooting for these blind squirrels to find an acorn or two.