The group of "pretending to be somewhat reasonable" Republicans/conservatives spent the early primary season lecturing Democrats that they needed to nominate a moderate like Joe Biden, both for asserted electability issues (maybe correct!) and to avoid a vicious backlash (ah, well, nevertheless).
Lots of AlmostNeverTrumpers would not have been behind most of the Dem nominees (certainly not Sanders, but they would have invented reasons for most of the rest). As for where they would have been on the long coup attempt? I suppose we'll never know...