Never Trump Republicans are still issuing dire warnings. Is anyone listening?

By STEVE PEOPLES, AP National Political Writer

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (AP) — Over and over, the Republicans and former Republicans who gathered just outside Washington this weekend warned that President Donald Trump and his allies in Congress are tearing at the very fabric of American democracy.

A former congressman described the president’s party as an “authoritarian-embracing cult.” A prominent conservative writer said Trumpism is an “existential threat.” And a retired Army general, his voice shaking with emotion, cited post-Nazi Germany as a roadmap for the nation’s post-Trump recovery.

It’s unclear how many people are listening.

The main convention hall at the sixth annual Principles First summit on Saturday and Sunday was half empty. About 750 chairs were set up in a room that could have fit thousands, and many were unfilled. Not a single current Republican elected official participated in the two-day program.

This is what remains of the Grand Old Party’s Never Trump movement, a coalition of Republicans, former Republicans and independents who banded together as Trump consolidated power. They largely remain political exiles — not quite at home among Democrats yet disgusted by how the president has abandoned Republicans’ longstanding commitments to free trade and limited government.

John McDowell, 69, who was a lifelong Republican before Trump’s emergence, acknowledged that the diminished group had virtually “zer...