— If Trump is dragged to an open convention and leads in delegates, but falls short of a majority, and is denied the nomination, there will be a bloodbath. Trump will make Andrew Jackson’s angry cry of a “corrupt bargain” after Old Hickory lost the presidency in the House of Representatives in 1824 — despite leading in popular and electoral votes — look like a measured, cool-headed response. Trump will stomp off, and no doubt take a lot of his supporters with him.

— If Trump is beaten prior to a convention, it will presumably require an all-out war against the mogul. Well-heeled Republican donors will have to pour money into an thermonuclear advertising campaign to destroy his image. The party will have to rally around a Trump alternative, doing everything in its power to bolster him and tear down Trump. Such an effort will no doubt strike Trump as “unfair,” and he will do all he can to delegitimize it and find targets to sue over it. Needless to say, none of this would be conducive to keeping Trump voters insider the Republican tent.

Has any political party ever had a candidate who is such a wrecking ball, and who isn’t a fringe candidate, but a dominant one?