The result has been a GOP backlash against him that has gathered increasing force. One group, including Ryan, McCain, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have opted to criticize Trump harshly, but haven’t withdrawn endorsements. Others are jumping ship. Meg Whitman, an executive who ran for California governor in 2010 and was finance chair of Chris Christie’s presidential campaign, just announced she’ll vote Clinton. So did Richard Hanna, a U.S. representative from New York.

Post-convention polls show Clinton enjoying a bump that pushed her back over the top of Trump. As Nate Cohn and Philip Bump argue, there are reasons to suspect she’s building a durable lead, and not just a quickly inflated one. On FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast, Clinton’s chance of winning has soared from underdog territory to a 68 percent likelihood over the last week.

How are Trump staffers taking it? The campaign insists all is copacetic. But some reporters are hearing others things anonymously:

longtime ally of Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign manager: "Manafort not challenging Trump anymore. Mailing it in. Staff suicidal." — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) August 3, 2016

A Trump campaign source, in reax to this, tells me "it's all true" and "way worse than people realize." https://t.co/nvioNcjMCJ — Ali Vitali (@alivitali) August 3, 2016

Top republican: @Reince is 'apoplectic' over Trump's refusal to back Ryan. He called several Trump staffers to express his displeasure. — Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) August 3, 2016

Just got off the phone with a top Trump donor and fundraiser. At wit's end. Expletive after expletive. Can't fathom what Trump is doing. — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) August 3, 2016

With characteristic finesse and diplomacy, Trump has laid out the problem for Republicans. They’re kind of stuck with him now, unless they want to throw their lot in with Clinton.

“Even if people don’t like me, they have to vote for me. They have no choice,” he said in Ashburn, Virginia, on Tuesday. “Even if you can’t stand Donald Trump, you think Donald Trump is the worst, you’re going to vote for me.”

With that in mind comes the second point: Even if Trump is unraveling, does it matter?

It isn’t news that establishment Republicans hate Trump; they kept trying (not very effectively, and not with much organization, but still) to derail him. Take Meg Whitman. She’s a moderate California plutocratic Republican anyway, and she’d been rumored to be leaning Clinton since June. To the Trump crew, she’s the kind of crony capitalist who represents everything rotten in the Republican Party anyway.

Sure, things look bad for Trump now—the last few polls have been dire. But how often has a candidate trailing at the beginning of August found that the race was effectively over? Bob Dole was never especially close to Bill Clinton in 1996, but he did make a late surge. In 1984, Walter Mondale, who even turned down a security briefing because he knew he’d lose, was down by 12 points, far more than Trump. Gerald Ford was down more than 30 points in the summer of 1976 but managed to close the gap to a near photo-finish. You’d have to go back to George McGovern in 1972 to see a candidate who was well and truly finished off long before the voting. Trump is closer than all of these candidates.