And Mr. Trump seems to be all but daring them, using his ritual Twitter unburdening on Thursday morning to lash out at two Republican senators — Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (“publicity seeking”) and Jeff Flake of Arizona (“Flake Jeff Flake”) — who have criticized his recent leadership.

There is no doubt that Republicans have collectively amended their approach to the Trump problem in recent months, at least slightly: Finger-wagging counter-tweets and one-off statements of disapproval have often supplanted willful public ignorance. (Many had long retained a habit of telling reporters they had not seen the president’s latest objectionable flourish, no matter how ubiquitous.)

But it is not clear what a meaningful, sustainable divorce from Mr. Trump could even look like.

The most extreme remedies, like impeachment, remain nonstarters in Republican circles. The party has likewise declined to embrace any formalized censure against the president, an option pushed Wednesday by House Democrats — though last month’s sanctions on Russia, passed against the administration’s wishes, were a notable bit of bipartisan defiance.

Among Republicans, though, the next steps are complicated by the president’s ramshackle legislative strategy: The White House has effectively outsourced its agenda to its partners in Congress.

Abandoning Mr. Trump is abandoning themselves.

Are Republicans to set aside plans to overhaul the tax code, a party priority long before Mr. Trump arrived? Should they really refuse to consider the president’s broadly conservative nominees?

At least some have arrived at a disquieting conclusion: It is time for the party to dream small, for now anyway.

“We can’t get an agenda through,” Mr. Flake said in an interview on Wednesday, noting the 60-vote threshold for most major legislation. “The notion you’re going to get all the Republicans, let alone any Democrats, to agree given his standing in the polls and when he’s making these kinds of statements is just absurd.”