There are lots of explanations for the rise of Donald Trump. I’ve been referring them to readers for months. Donald Trump is the return of the repressed. He’s the sign that immigration politics are soon to dominate the political discourse. He is the tribune of the forgotten man and the working class who have been left behind by globalization. He is the chastisement that the Republican elites have merited through their total disregard for the economic interests of their core voters.

But one of the most obvious explanations for the rise of Donald Trump is that nobody fought him. Nobody responded to him in kind. When Donald Trump made fun of Jeb Bush’s wife, Jeb Bush should have said how much he’d enjoy caving in the face of a degenerate casino owner. When Donald Trump said Rand Paul didn’t belong on the stage, Paul should have replied that Trump was a disloyal interloper who would leave his followers hanging just as he left Atlantic City in shambles. When Trump hogged all the free media, the Republican donor class should have bought media and re-defined Trump.

But nobody in the GOP did it. The leadership of the party broke apart like balsa-wood and plate-glass, the collapsing set of an action movie. Trump looks like a hero smashing through a corrupt establishment. What else could the establishment be, but corrupt, if it never bothered to defend its right to rule?