Why weren’t “moral” conservatives able to stop Trump from getting the GOP nomination?

[darklordoftech]

Why weren’t evangelicals, the Religious Right, social conservatives, etc. able to stop Trump?

[Coastal_Elite]

These voters do not care about Trump's morality or lack thereof. They want to turn the United States into the Republic of Gilead and they believe Trump is most likely to do so.

[Hope For A New Era]

These voters do not care about Trump's morality or lack thereof. They want to turn the United States into the Republic of Gilead and they believe Trump is most likely to do so.

This, combined with the fact that the few who were not like this were divided between several candidates until far too late during the primaries.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

The field was so split that it enabled Trump to get pluralities in so many places that he eventually became inevitable.  In the primaries, Trump did well with self-described evangelicals who rarely said they went to church, but frequent church-going evangelicals went heavily for Cruz and even Rubio (with some to Carson).  Most of the South voted on Super Tuesday/the SEC Primary, and the candidates with strong support from very religious evangelicals kind of stole votes from each other, allowing Trump to win pluralities of the vote in the South.  The primary dynamic may have been different in other parts of the country, but look at what the SEC Primary results in the South would have been with Trump vs. a hypothetical Crubio (also noting the Carson vote):

Texas: Crubio +34.8 (4.2% Carson)
Oklahoma: Crubio +32.1 (6.2% Carson)
Arkansas: Crubio +22.5 (5.7% Carson)
Virginia: Crubio +13.9 (5.9% Carson)
Georgia: Crubio +9.2 (6.2% Carson)
Tennessee: Crubio +7.0 (7.6% Carson)
Alabama: Trump +3.7 (10.2% Carson)

More broadly, the South Carolina primary was another case where Trump won with only a small plurality.  In no state in the South (other than West Virginia, which voted after the primary was decided), did Trump actually win a majority of the vote.  Only in Mississippi and Florida did he defeat Cruz+Rubio+Carson.  My basic answer is that, within Southern Republican political geography/demographics, there were too many candidates basically appealing to the same type of voter, allowing the 30-40% of Trump voters to carry the day.

[The Houstonian]

They think that "God uses imperfect vessels to do his perfect work." If Rahab the prostitute and King Cyrus could serve God's purposes, then why not Donald Trump?

[Hammy]

Winner take all system in the GOP primary was a major factor.

[pbrower2a]

Because the bulk of the GOP is now authoritarians who accept democratic practice such as elections only when such serve their ends. These people are more interested in power than service in political life, and that if they get control they will use government to enrich themselves, repress and exploit others, and achieve their dreams even of those dreams include the risk of global thermonuclear war.

Such is not moral, and the moral conservatives have no home in the GOP anymore because the authoritarians dominate, and none in the Democratic Party so far (although I could see them taking over some weak Democratic Parties in states like Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Utah as an alternative to amoral right-wingers.   

The question remains: has Donald Trump reshaped the agenda and practice of the Republican Party?

What is ignored is as much "rational" as "moral". Pseudoscience and bigotry are anything but rational -- oe moral.

[Bootes Void]

moving to a proportional system is probably a better way