Except that it didn’t work out that way. Trump is officially the Republican nominee, not Cruz, Kasich or some last-minute white knight, and Ryan and Priebus are still officially supporting him. But all their compromises have availed them nothing: The chaos that the G.O.P. elite hoped to contain by surrendering to Trump has engulfed the party even so.

The party’s leaders were afraid Trump would rage against them if they denied him the nomination; instead, he is raging against them for refusing to go to the mat for his caught-on-tape misogyny and pornographic boasts. They were afraid of infuriating his core voters by opposing him at the convention; instead, they are infuriating his core voters by keeping him at arm’s length in the election’s final stretch. They feared a war of Republican against Republican, conservative against conservative; they have one. They feared a turnout collapse, an inevitable defeat; they will most likely get both.

Above all, they feared the specter of a defeated Donald Trump railing against a corrupt convention bargain all through 2016 and beyond. So instead they will get Donald Trump railing against an establishment dolchstoss, a stab in the back, from the moment the polls close on Nov. 8 until he either wins the 2020 nomination or draws his dying breath.

History in its day to day is not a morality play. But sometimes there is a clear chastisement, a moment when the judgments of providence seem stark. And so it may be for the men who led the Republican Party into its Trumpian inferno.

In bending the knee to Trump last spring, they thought that they were buying party unity and a continued share of power, and paying for it with just a little of their decency, a mite of their patriotism, a soupçon of their honor.

They may find out soon enough that all this bargain bought them was an even harsher reckoning, and that all they will inherit is the wind.