In the grand, depressing theater of American governance, where the sets are perpetually on fire and the actors are mostly high-functioning sociopaths, a new sub-plot has emerged. It involves a handful of Republicans who have suddenly, and quite belatedly, discovered the concept of a ‘conscience.’ These self-styled ‘rebels’—a term usually reserved for people with actual stakes, not career politicians with gold-plated healthcare—have decided that after a year of watching the Orange One treat the Constitution like a greasy napkin, they have finally reached their limit. It is a spectacle of such profound, late-stage moral posturing that it deserves its own exhibit in the Museum of Futile Gestures.

Let us begin with the Kentucky libertarians, Thomas Massie and his ilk. These are men who have built their entire brands on being the ‘No’ vote in a room full of ‘Yes’ men, yet their rebellion often feels less like a principled stand and more like a tactical retreat into the bushes. To be a libertarian in the modern GOP is to be a person who hates the government so much they insist on being paid by it for thirty years. Their sudden distaste for the MAGA hegemony is not a defense of democratic norms; it is a territorial dispute. They aren’t mad that the bus is driving off a cliff; they’re just mad they aren’t the ones holding the map to the abyss. They represent a faction that finds Trump’s populism ‘tacky,’ which is the political equivalent of complaining about the wallpaper while the house is being hit by a hurricane.

Then we have the ‘loudest supporters’ who have suddenly found their indoor voices. These are the individuals who spent years acting as the human equivalent of a hype-man at a professional wrestling match, only to realize that the wrestler is actually going to hit them with a chair. Their ‘rebellion’ is perhaps the most nauseating of all. It is the realization that the monster they helped stitch together in the basement has finally broken the chains and is looking at them with a hungry eye. To call this a ‘stand’ is an insult to anyone who has ever actually stood for anything. This is survival. This is a rat noticing the water level in the cargo hold and deciding that perhaps the captain isn't a visionary after all.

We must also address the retiring senators who are suddenly ‘sick of stupid.’ There is nothing quite as brave as a politician who finds his spine the moment he stops needing his constituents. It is a miracle of modern biology—the sudden growth of a vertebrae the second the reelection campaign is canceled. These figures, like the outgoing elders of the party, lament the ‘stupidity’ of the current era as if they weren’t the ones who spent decades lowering the educational standards and historical literacy of the electorate to ensure a steady stream of compliant voters. They built the idiocracy, and now they have the audacity to complain that it’s too noisy. Watching them decry the state of the party is like watching an arsonist complain that the fire they started is putting off too much soot.

And let us not forget the ‘swing district’ Republican, the political equivalent of a weather vane in a wind tunnel. Their rebellion is a matter of cold, hard mathematics. In a district where the median voter is a suburbanite who just wants their property taxes to stay flat and their neighborhood to stay quiet, the loud, abrasive brand of Trumpism is a liability. Their ‘principled opposition’ is actually just a desperate attempt to avoid being swept away in the next electoral tide. They don’t hate the direction of the party; they hate that it’s making their jobs harder. If the polls shifted five points to the right tomorrow, they would be back on the campaign trail wearing the red hat and singing praises to the heavens.

What we are witnessing is not a revolution or a rebirth of the Republican party. It is a collection of disparate, self-interested actors performing a disorganized retreat. The Left, of course, will try to frame these people as heroes of democracy, because the Left is perpetually addicted to the ‘West Wing’ fantasy where everyone is one stirring speech away from doing the right thing. The Right will brand them as traitors and RINOs, because the Right has become a cult of personality where any deviation from the leader’s latest fever dream is heresy. Both sides are wrong, as usual.

These GOP rebels are not saving the country; they are barely saving themselves. They are the flotsam and jetsam of a shipwrecked political philosophy, bobbing in the water and hoping someone mistakes their frantic splashing for a coordinated swim. The tragedy isn’t that they are standing up to Trump; the tragedy is that it took them this long to realize that the man they were following was leading them into a cul-de-sac of their own making. In the end, it won’t matter. The machine is too broken, the voters are too angry, and the ‘rebels’ are too little, too late. We are all just passengers on a train with no brakes, watching the engineers argue about whether or not the crash will look better in profile.