Most of the GOP, like the rest of us, just assumed that Trump’s rhetorical excesses would go too far, or something from his past would come out to derail his candidacy. So none of the other candidates attacked him in the hopes of then being in a more favorable position to pick up his supporters.

But Trump sold himself as the anti-politician, and as a result, none of the rules or conventions of campaigning applied to him: he survived disasters that would have wrecked any “normal” candidate.