Meanwhile, a ritual chant wafts gently down Massachusetts Avenue, spilling onto K Street and into the Cosmos Club. Time for Trump to pass the baton, the GOP’s high priests and augurs say over the asparagus hollandaise. Resplendent in their Hermés and gold, and waiting for the Fox bookers to call, they nod their heads as one. Time for Trump to pass the baton.

Yet ask the high priests: when are you going to make him go away? Dead silence, but for the faint sound of temple bells and glass chimes tinkling in the wind. Washington’s priests like their sinecures. They are afraid of Trump’s legendary wrath. They want to be on the team, and have a place at the table. Reconciling the hollandaise and that Podunk base on which they depend takes daily faith and self-instruction.

Trump will not willingly pass the baton, of course, and does not intend to. Instead, like a malicious child, he plans to play cat-and-mouse mixed with I got you elected bravado, a sick game of domination played at the expense of his party, country, and honor. If Trump goes third party, the Republicans will sacrifice their greatest opportunity in decades to advance what he began.