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The wreck of the Trump-tanic is a spectacular political disaster. With Donald Trump’s unsalvageable campaign sinking fast, Republican leaders are scrambling to the lifeboats in levels of despair and desperation not seen in Washington since Watergate.
Mr Trump and his allies were already reeling from an unparalleled series of setbacks: a terrible performance in the first debate against Hillary Clinton; revelations he lost almost $1 billion in a single year and may not have paid any federal taxes for almost two decades; and continued, apparently compulsive, bizarre behaviour including a Twitter feud with a former beauty queen over her weight and eating habits.
The coup de grace came on Friday when the Washington Post revealed a videotape from 2005 showing Mr Trump boasting about routinely sexually assaulting women, grabbing their private areas, and attempting (unsuccessfully) to seduce a married woman (when he was well into his own third marriage).
This cavalcade of scandals has sealed his defeat and rendered him politically radioactive. He’s not only going to lose. Any Republican who fails to disassociate themselves from him while they have a chance might be permanently discredited.
The video is especially devastating because Mr Trump’s last, rather desperate, line of attack against Mrs Clinton, in the run-up to the second debate, was to dredge up dated controversies about Bill Clinton’s behaviour with women and accuse his wife of being “an enabler”.
The Clinton campaign was strongly signalling it was ready, if not eager, to engage Mr Trump on this issue. Given they now have what amount to tactical nuclear weapons for a counter attack on sexual proprieties, they probably can’t wait.
Beleaguered Republicans find themselves in an impossible series of traps, largely of their own construction. The biggest losers are those, such as Senator Ted Cruz, who only just clambered aboard the ill-fated SS Trump-tanic.
Party leaders are dutifully issuing their latest strong condemnations of their own candidate’s words and deeds. But they look absolutely ridiculous continuously denouncing Mr Trump in harsh terms, while simultaneously still backing him for the presidency. It makes no sense whatsoever. Additional Trump scandals are likely to be revealed in the month remaining before the election.
A movement is brewing among Republican politicians, eager to salvage their own futures, to repudiate Mr Trump, rescind their endorsements of him, and urge him to withdraw from the election. He says he would never consider voluntarily withdrawing, and, indeed, that would be completely out of character.
Its own rules do not allow the Republicans to replace Mr Trump as the candidate, and even if he did voluntarily withdraw, with ballots already printed and early voting having already begun in many places, it would be practically impossible to plausibly field another candidate at this stage. They are stuck with him, especially since there is almost no chance he will voluntarily step aside.
Worse still, Mr Trump’s plummeting reputation looks increasingly likely to threaten Republican prospects of retaining a majority not only in the Senate, but even in the House of Representatives.
It seems increasingly plausible that enough Republican and independent voters, particularly women, will be so disgusted by Mr Trump that they will stay home on election day, to render otherwise safe seats in Congress suddenly susceptible to heretofore unanticipated Democratic victories.
Moreover, Republicans face a bleak future in the aftermath of a Trump-engineered electoral defeat. A vicious, bloody fight over the leadership, future and even identity of the Republican Party seems inevitable between traditional constituencies such as social and religious conservatives, business interests and hawkish neoconservatives versus newer blocs such as the white nationalist “alt-right” and the nativist, protectionist tea party movement that fuelled the Trump insurgency.
These groups have all been willing to put their differences aside for much of the campaign in mutual hopes of electing Mr Trump, but with very different expectations and aspirations. Negotiating the reunification of the party in the aftermath of a stinging defeat to Mrs Clinton, and possibly in Congress, and in the context of deep and bitter divisions and, in many cases, contradictory and mutually exclusive agendas, will be extremely difficult.
Traditional factions will blame the Trump-adoring insurgents for the debacle and demand a return to traditional conservatism. The upstarts will castigate traditionalists for not sufficiently backing the candidate and being dinosaurs out of touch with the public mood.
Individual Republican politicians, meanwhile, will struggle to explain to the broader public why they supported someone who, from the outset, was obviously unqualified and unfit, and is quickly becoming a widely-despised synonym for racism, misogyny, greed, cheating and sleaze.
Mr Trump is dragging everyone around him towards a watery political grave. Knowing this, the Republican National Committee has halted at least some work on its “Victory” project to elect him. For the panicking Republican crew, it’s now every one for themselves.