Ron Brownstein: “Trump’s Republican skeptics, both inside and outside of Congress, agree that GOP officials who privately rail about Trump won’t publicly challenge him, primarily because polls show he’s so popular with the party base. But that’s partly a self-fulfilling prophecy: One reason Trump is so popular with the base is because no one has made a systematic case against his presidency from a Republican perspective.”

“A handful of Republican elected officials, and a slightly longer roster of party strategists and intellectuals, have intermittently criticized Trump… If anything, these solo flights may have weakened the anti-Trump cause inside the GOP.”

“There’s no easy solution to that dilemma. But history suggests the first step may be to find strength in numbers. In recent decades, other factions disaffected with their party’s direction have amplified their influence by coalescing and creating their own institutions. Probably the best-known recent example is the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which party centrists formed after Ronald Reagan routed old-style liberal Walter Mondale in 1984.”

“I’m furious Republicans are cowardly about Trump. But here is what they say in private: 1.) Trump is a disgrace. 2.) I give fiery press conf tommorrow saying that. 3.) Nothing changes, Trump remains nuts and remains POTUS. 4.) A nut beats me in next primary. So how does my political suicide help?”

— GOP strategist Mike Murphy, on Twitter.

“The Republican National Committee has raised more than $200 million this election cycle… the fastest the committee has reached the milestone in a midterm period,” CNN reports.

“The RNC haul far eclipses the more than $101 million the Democratic National Committee has raised this cycle, giving the committee upwards of five times the amount of cash-on-hand as the Democrats.”

“A county Republican Party chairman from Southeast Ohio resigned on Monday, citing President Donald Trump’s meeting earlier in the day with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Said Chris Gagin: “The President is entitled to GOP party leaders, at all levels, fully committed to his views and agenda. Following today’s press conference with Pres. Putin, as well as certain policy differences, most especially on trade, I could no longer fulfill that duty. Thus, I resigned.”

Playbook: “Yes, of course some will, but not most. Why? Myriad reasons, and it’s not really that neat and easy to assign one motivation to hundreds of Republicans. But Trump can truly do no wrong with a large segment of the Republican base. So, in a political system where a primary challenge is your principal political hurdle, you don’t want to be on the wrong side of the popular president. Many, though, will seethe privately, for whatever that’s worth.”

“President Trump’s transformation of the Republican Party is taking full root — with the president in recent days shunning traditional alliances and values that have long been core tenets of the GOP,” the Washington Post reports.

“The hardening of Trump’s positions on key parts of his ‘America First’ agenda comes just four months before November’s midterm elections. That is increasing the pressure on congressional Republicans to either embrace the most controversial tenets of his presidency or attempt to distance themselves from them in hopes of attracting the independent voters they are likely to need to retain control of Congress.”

Max Boot: “After a lifetime as a Republican, I re-registered as an independent on the day after Donald Trump’s election… I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. The transformation I feared has taken place. Just look at the reaction to President Trump’s barbarous policy of taking children away from their parents as punishment for the misdemeanor offense of illegally entering the country. While two-thirds of Americans disapproved of this state-sanctioned child abuse, forcing the president to back down, a majority of Republicans approved. If Trump announced he were going to spit-roast immigrant kids and eat them on national TV (apologies to Jonathan Swift), most Republicans probably would approve of that, too. The entire Republican platform can now be reduced to three words: whatever Trump says.”

“Personally, I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of the child-snatchers. But I respect principled conservatives who are willing to stay and fight to reclaim a once-great party that freed the slaves and helped to win the Cold War. What I can’t respect are head-in-the-sand conservatives who continue to support the GOP by pretending that nothing has changed.”

“That is why I join Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.”

“Republicans who support abortion rights have long been an endangered species in the House of Representatives. But next year, the rare breed will finally be extinct,” Politico reports.

“The retirements of Reps. Charlie Dent and Rodney Frelinghuysen mark the end of the line for abortion rights supporters in the Republican Conference. And there’s no GOP nominee in a competitive race who backs abortion rights this year, according to abortion interest groups and party officials, which will leave Congress more polarized on the issue than at any time since Roe v. Wade — all of it with a bruising Supreme Court nomination on the horizon.”