"openly supporting" the winning presidential candidate isn't "absurd".
Time is not on their side, and I suspect History is not on their side either.
Until people start actually voting for (a) third party, I am afraid that rather than being a last squeeze, we will be getting candidates like this more often, not less.
Older people almost always have disproportionately higher turnout in elections.
It is entirely possible to support someone's form of leadership without entirely supporting all of the person's ideas.
That's why I specifically said Trump's vile brand of leadership. It's OK to agree or disagree with his ideas, but leadership is far more than having good or bad ideas. Leadership is ultimately about people and having a selfless, coherent vision for the people you represent.
Simply dismissing the concerns of tens of millions of americans as "racist and sexist" is not helpful and in fact perpetuates the problem. I am not a Trump supporter, or a Thiel supporter, but it's not self-evidently bad that a person with some means chose to work with the guy in charge to try to make a difference. This kind of lazy dismissal is part of the problem.
I have zero faith that our current president cares about anything beyond himself and his image. Zero.
And I’m not alone. A shocking number of conservative writers and thinkers believe Trump represents a fundamental threat to democracy. Behind closed doors, even many of his ardent public supporters have no respect or faith in him.
I still think that in terms of damage done Nixon was the worst we've had and Bush comes in second. Trump is dangerous in my opinion, but nothing so far comes close to what Bush did. It's strange that you make dislike of Bush sound unreasonable. It's perfectly reasonable.