At a hotel ballroom in National Harbor, Maryland, a stubborn band of Republicans, former Republicans, and politically disowned stepchildren gathered to say the quiet part out loud: they believe Donald Trump and his congressional enablers are taking a crowbar to the guardrails of American democracy.

The language wasn’t subtle. A former GOP congressman called today’s Republican Party an “authoritarian-embracing cult.” A conservative writer labeled Trumpism an “existential threat” — which is think-tank code for “this could end very badly.” A retired Army general, voice shaking, invoked post-Nazi Germany as a roadmap for recovery. When military historians start using 1930s analogies, it’s not because they’re bored. It’s because they’ve read history.

The problem? The main hall looked like a canceled wedding reception. About 750 chairs in a room built for thousands. Many empty. Not a single current Republican elected official showed up. The message was clear: the party that once claimed to worship the Constitution now treats internal dissent like a contagious disease.

This is what’s left of the Never Trump movement — a coalition of conservatives who feel like refugees from their own party. They’re not exactly moving into Democratic headquarters, but they’re watching the GOP morph into something unrecognizable. Free trade? Limited government? Those were the old family heirlooms. Now it’s loyalty tests and grievance rallies.

One longtime Republican admitted the group has “virtually zero” influence. Translation: the inmates have the keys, and the fire alarms are being unplugged.

The White House dismissed the summit as a gathering of “deranged has-beens.” That’s become the standard operating procedure: if someone criticizes Dear Leader, question their sanity, then move on. It’s efficient. Also chilling.

And yet, there was a strange undercurrent of hope. Some attendees pointed to polling showing cracks in Trump’s support. Others cheered the Supreme Court’s decision striking down his tariff scheme — even as Trump immediately vowed to find another lever to pull. When one lever fails, just try another. That’s how strongmen think about power: not as limited, but as improv.

Many in the room openly said they’re rooting for Democratic victories in the midterms. Not because they suddenly fell in love with progressive policy, but because they see the alternative as something darker — a slow corrosion of institutions, alliances, and credibility. The fear isn’t a single headline. It’s the normalization of chaos.

The vibe in that half-empty ballroom was part support group, part early-warning system. Some talked about an “electoral revolt” building slowly. Others warned that rebuilding trust — at home and abroad — could take a generation. Democracies don’t collapse in a day. They erode, one precedent at a time, while people argue over whether it’s really happening.

For now, the Never Trump crowd is small and politically sidelined. But their argument is blunt: when history books start writing chapters about this era, nobody’s going to care who won the snark war on cable news. They’ll care whether the guardrails held — or whether we convinced ourselves everything was fine while the bolts were coming loose.