For now, openly siding with Trump is still not “done” in the New York–Washington corridor. But if Trump were to pull even and stay that way for a week, and curb his bombast, he might be able to assemble a team of advisors and possible cabinet members whom he could reference in the matter of possible Supreme Court picks, lending further legitimacy to his candidacy.

There is a herd-like mentality in Washington and New York, where the gospel is not professed politics, but unspoken allegiance to a perceived winner. Momentum is the deity. If Trump were to creep out ahead, one should not be surprised about the resulting silence in the Never Trump camp, or about those who would suddenly “be willing” to join a Team Trump. Epithets like “ape” and “Hitler” would mysteriously disappear. For those worried about a satanic President Trump, they should at least concede that Republican elites sign letters of dissent against their own nominee, whom the media seek to destroy at every turn; in contrast, there will be no Democratic establishment cries of outrage over Hillary Clinton’s past and future crimes and sins — and the media will abet, not censure, her excesses.

What is forgotten in the Trump pessimism is that even with less than three months until Election Day, the Republican nominee — after the worst imaginable self-inflicted wounds, and with a complete absence of serious fundraising, an ad campaign, or a ground game — still is within striking distance of winning the election. If he were to do so, for the first time in a generation, the Republican party would likely control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and the future of the Supreme Court — with a public on record in support of radical change and without need to pacify its old establishment. Certainly, an attorney general like Rudy Giuliani would be preferable to Loretta Lynch, just as a John Bolton at State would not run the department in the fashion that Clinton herself did during Obama’s first term.