The New York Times on Thursday obtained an internal memo by David McIntosh, the president of the anti-Trump Club for Growth, concluding that their expensive ad campaign to turn GOP primary voters on to another candidate has failed and resistance is futile. Some clips of their findings:

“Even when you show video to Republican primary voters – with complete context – of President Trump saying something otherwise objectionable to primary voters, they find a way to rationalize and dismiss it,” and yeah, no shit. It’s a cult. “Every traditional postproduction ad attacking President Trump either backfired or produced no impact on his ballot support and favorability. This includes ads that primarily feature video of him saying liberal or stupid comments from his own mouth.”

“Broadly acceptable messages against President Trump with Republican primary voters that do not produce a meaningful backlash include sharing concerns about his ability to beat President Biden, expressions of Trump fatigue due to the distractions he creates and the polarization of the country, as well as his pattern of attacking conservative leaders for self-interested reasons,” McIntosh wrote.

He then gets into the ads that did at least kind of work, writing they disarmed “the viewer at the opening of the ad by establishing that the person being interviewed on camera is a Republican who previously supported Trump… otherwise, the viewer will automatically put their guard up, assuming the messenger is just another Trump-hater whose opinion should be summarily dismissed.”