"But opposing collectivism also means opposing collectivist thought, which has increasingly come to define the GOP."

Exactly.  As a lifetime independent and longtime student of Soviet history I had come in recent years to view the GOP as something akin to the Bolsheviks during the interim between Lenin's death and Stalin's rise.  A self-enclosed party with some dynamism and openness to ideas within its own boundaries, coupled with an absolute refusal to consider the legitimacy of anything beyond itself (and like the Bolsheviks, utterly immune to demonstrable scientific and economic facts).

Now the Republicans are at the point of Stalin's rise.  They have lost all connection with even a basic governing ideology and have embraced a strongman who defines their entire enterprise.  Like the Bolsheviks, the Republicans are splintering between those who roll over out of fear and those who recognize that their Revolution has gone horribly astray.

No strongman government has ever ended well.