Do we know anything more about Trump today than we knew two weeks ago? I think the answer is obviously “no”. It’s probably fair to say that if you had Trump at a 71 on the scale of absolute craziness, he’s now maybe a 74 or maybe 76.

It’s just not that different.

But now it looks like gravity does work. Acting like a maniac on the public stage is making some people less likely to vote for Trump. Scott Baio wasn’t as persuasive a messenger as Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. Trump is starting to look like as big a political loser as you’d expect – or at least hope. Of course, they call convention bounces “bounces” for a reason. They tend to fade. But this is a big bounce. And you should be confident that endangered Republican senators are getting very bleak reports from pollsters working for their campaigns or the NRSC.

I get that the Khan debacle seems particularly extreme, not only for the callousness, the violation of one of contemporary America’s gravest public taboos and more than anything else the lack of self-control and overabundance of self-destructiveness. But if Trump were polling better I’m confident we’d just be seeing more handwringing. The belief that he might actually be able to win is the glue which has bound together the bad faith, hypocrisy, fear and general derp congealing the Republican party around Trump. Absent that, everybody will start to run for the hills.