The Black Hole That Could Swallow the GOP

Matt Bai: “The critical window between Trump’s effective nomination five weeks ago and next month’s convention is closing fast, and far from projecting more gravitas, Trump seems bent on making a fool of every credible Republican who has stepped up to tepidly endorse him… Here’s the thing Ryan and I both should have understood about Trump, and that now seems to me the central fact of his existence: He is a man tragically enslaved to his own neediness.”

“For Trump, insecurity is not a manageable motivator. It is the black hole that consumes him…He has an almost pathological obsession with ratings, polls, flattering profiles…Every criticism, every judgment, every potential obstacle seems to evoke in him a latent rage, a sense that the world – as embodied in Manhattan’s unbreachable elite – is condescending to him again… The black hole, left unchecked, could swallow the party’s electoral hopes and leave no trace.”