One of the ways you know Washington is a big echo chamber is the frequency with which certain themes spread, and become quickly co-opted across the spectrum once they start. Someone says something one day, and it only takes a day or two for it to be repeated by dozens of others. Conventional wisdom rises and falls quickly in a town where everyone is trying to sound hip to the correct thinking of the moment.
So in the past week we're seeing, from a lot of different quarters, the idea that it's time for "Republicans who will stand up to Donald Trump." And it's not just coming from one ideological corner. Here it is from longtime Republican national security type Max Boot. Here it is from left-wing blowhard Dana Milbank of the Washington Post - a conventional Beltway pundit if ever there was one.
Not to be outdone, #NeverTrump conservatives like Jay Caruso and Amanda Carpenter are parroting the line as well in a desperate attempt to justify their willingness to see Hillary Clinton elected president.