After video and audio clips surfaced of Donald Trump condoning sexual assault and approving of Howard Stern calling his daughter Ivanka a “piece of ass,” the tide of the Republican Party has finally started to turn away from its presidential nominee. Republican National Committee lawyers are reportedly looking into the options to replace Trump (there are very few). Meanwhile, some are calling the last 24 hours Trump’s “Defection Saturday,” a reference to the GOP’s abandonment of Richard Nixon in the last days of his presidency.

All of this is much too little, and way too late. At the very beginning of his campaign, Trump called Mexicans “rapists.” He followed that up by calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country. He has been revealed to be a chronic liar, a bully, a likely tax dodger, and a misogynist. Some argue that the now infamous “grab them by the pussy” video is different in that it gives Republicans no plausible deniability. But no one could seriously deny that Trump was unfit to be president for a whole host of reasons—any of which could have been reason for Republicans to have dropped their candidate a long time ago.

Now, many Republicans are calling for Trump to step down and be replaced by a party conservative. As Brian Beutler notes in The New Republic, this is a purely anti-democratic fantasy. Not only is it politically implausible, it is uniquely galling—as Beutler puts it, “Republicans still want to scrub Trump from the public imagination, only they want to do it immediately and then be rewarded for it with unmatched political power.” It’s basically like asking for the keys to your father’s car after you totaled your own while driving drunk.

But perhaps even more egregious is the fact that Republicans like Senators John Thune and Kelly Ayotte are depicting Mike Pence as the stalwart, GOP alternative.

Donald Trump should withdraw and Mike Pence should be our nominee effective immediately. — Senator John Thune (@SenJohnThune) October 8, 2016

I will not vote for Donald Trump. Read my statement here: pic.twitter.com/F8zajgDZpg — Kelly Ayotte (@KellyAyotte) October 8, 2016

The idea that Pence could somehow salvage the party reveals once again how little soul-searching the Republican Party has done over the last year. After all, having run on a Trump ticket, Pence is the most culpable member of a party that has enabled Trump at every turn. As Libby Nelson notes over at Vox, the very act of Pence accepting the VP nomination should disqualify him immediately. There is no way that Pence can, in good faith, separate himself from the awfulness of Donald Trump.