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Yeah, but the scare tactics also energise the opposition base. If potential voters are seeing "Out of all our possible nominees, Trump is the one that scares the other bunch and they're afraid he's going to do all the policies when he gets into power", then if I am broadly in tune with what Trump is saying, or at the very least I feel that I'm not going to do well if Gavin Newsom becomes president, I'm going to go for Trump instead of Nikki or Vivek or whatever other 'let's pick a nice moderate centrist to cool down partisanship' person is put up.
If you really think Trump is going to End Democracy, then do the tar baby strategy (side note: is that acceptable reference or not, I have no idea what particular bee may be in any Anti-Evil bonnet about outdated references): go "Trump is all washed-up and useless, who we really don't want to see getting the nod is [Billy-Bob]". That throws support behind Billy-Bob and with any luck splits the opposition vote on polling day. At the very least, Billy-Bob should be the lesser of two evils.
Again, I agree this is a sensible type of strategy in general, I just think Trump has had too much of a lead for it to actually change the outcome of the Republican primary.
And if you try it and fail then you've potentially hurt your chances in the General by not activating your own base.
It's a strategic calculation with trade-offs. I think the strategic choice their making has better chances than the one you're proposing, but of course I could be wrong.
If your base has to be activated by a belief that this time for realsies the sky is falling, then you should instead invest in a bunch of cattle-prods to drive them to the voting booth. Cheaper and less wearing on the nerves for the rest of us who have to listen to the hyperventilating.
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