The Trump forces have never gotten their story straight about Never Trump. At times, the GOP’s internal opposition is supposed be wholly irrelevant and crushed under the iron heel of the will of the people; at other times, it is invested with more sinister significance than the Doctor’s Plot at the height of Stalin’s paranoia. So, Trump himself pronounced Never Trump “never more” in July at the GOP convention, several months before Kellyanne Conway suggested it is costing Trump the election. Which is it?

It was never right to call Never Trump a movement; it is a motley collection of conservative commentators, political professionals, policy experts and a handful of politicians who had the (not particularly stunning) foresight to see that Trump would be the weakest and most vulnerable of the Republican general-election candidates and the (not particularly acute) discernment to recognize in him qualities unsuited to the presidency.

(I didn’t adopt the “Never Trump” label myself, holding out the chance that Trump would give me reason to look at him differently during the course of the campaign. As for the issue of National Review opposing Trump in the primaries, it is sometimes referred to as our “Never Trump” issue, although the cover said “Against Trump” and some of the contributors eventually went on to support him.)