And, unless the next two weeks brings some truly unprecedented collapse, the Republican Party is going to get behind Trump, or at least nearly everyone outside of the anvil chorus of the conservative movement will. Trump has already been endorsed by Republicans across the political spectrum, from moderate Chris Christie to ultraconservative Jeff Sessions. John McCain (who Trump insulted) has said he would support Trump if he was the party’s nominee. Paul Ryan also gave indications that he would endorse Trump if Republican voters nominate him. And if Trump’s ceiling continues to rise, voters in the party simply won’t allow major Republican officeholders to withhold their endorsement from Hillary Clinton’s rival. A serious conservative third-party challenge seems implausible. And then there’s the matter that all of Trump’s rivals pledged to support whoever the Republican Party selected as its nominee.

The Republicans really are gearing up to nominate one of the most polarizing figures to emerge in modern American politics. They are doing this despite the fact that he fails many supposed litmus tests for the nominee. And even when general election polling has him as one of the weaker candidates left in the Republican field. For conservatives, it is as if the law of gravity were suddenly reversed. The party once functioned according to litmus tests. These tests were often the source of the conservative commentariat’s perceived power. The number of hoops Mitt Romney had to jump through in 2012 was the proof of this power. And now conservatives are about to be effectively dealt out of the Republican game for this election cycle.

This is the story of a political lifetime, if any of us can bring ourselves to believe it is really happening.