But he is on message. Using his public platform as nominee to advance his private interests, replete with some ethnic baiting mixed in, is this guy’s message. More than the nationalist and protectionist claptrap, more even than his invective against political correctness, the essence of Trump’s campaign is that a return to American greatness requires empowering him and trusting him to do right. If he wants to get up at the podium and rant about a civil suit and the “Mexican” judge, well, he’s the leader. That’s what he felt like doing in San Diego. He won the battle for the party and now it’s time to do what he wants, not vice versa. That’s the political takeaway from all of this. The GOP’s message is whatever Trump deems important at a given moment, whether it serves the party’s ends this fall or not. It’s time for Mitch and Reince to get on message.

Actually, if you pay attention to the news, you know that the party’s already working on a new message to try to spin away this Trump/judge business. The message is that the nominee, being a political amateur, should be received in roughly the same spirit of understanding and forgiveness for his mistakes as, say, a developmentally disabled fifth-grader.

https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/740244108644634624

Top GOP Sen Hatch says this is Trump's 1st time at politics:
"Be nice to him…. He's going to make mistakes."

— Lisa Mascaro (@LisaMascaro) June 7, 2016

Paul Ryan on Trump's Attacks on Judge: 'Hopefully a Lesson Will Be Learned Here' https://t.co/QQrxUFna6C (AUDIO) pic.twitter.com/2fLVBpacBu

— Mediaite (@Mediaite) June 7, 2016

You can’t expect a 69-year-old billionaire newbie to politics to grasp complex lessons right away like “Don’t stammer about the presiding judge in your court case being a ‘Mexican’ like you have a head injury.” That’s advanced politics, something you graduate to. First you learn the basics, like “Try to spend most of your time talking about why voters should elect you and not the other person.” Hopefully Trump can get all of his credits and earn his diploma in the five months he has left before voters choose the new leader of the free world.

Elsewhere today, Bob Corker told Yahoo News that Trump has two or three weeks to fix his campaign. Or what? What are you going to do? Nothing, that’s what.