When a party is functioning well, the passions of individual factions get subsumed into and sublimated by the institution as a whole. But in order to function, the party’s leadership and its factions need to speak the same language and understand themselves to agree on certain core ideals, strategies, and tactics.

None of this is true about the GOP today. No, the GOP is burning to the ground, and Donald Trump is fanning the flames.

From the moment he launched his campaign for president, Donald Trump demonstrated that he did unmodulated, contemptuous fury better than any of his 16 opponents. Our immigration policy was a disaster, he said. As was ObamaCare. And the Iran deal. And the Iraq War. And the economy. And our conduct of the war on terror. Complete disasters, all of them. Pathetic.

To those members of the party whose view of the world has been shaped for more than 20 years by rabblerousers on talk radio and cable news, Trump sounded like a long-awaited savior. Finally someone to tear it all down — the Democrats, yes, but also the Republicans who run the party.