Over the summer, when Donald Trump made the superlative decision to go to war with Gold Star mother and father Khizr and Ghazala Khan, nauseous Republicans began praying that they could somehow replace their rancid nominee with someone slightly less odiferous. Of course, they couldn’t do so against Trump’s will: The GOP can only pick an alternative if The Donald himself chooses to drop out. But at least back then, had Trump done so, Republicans could have gotten someone else’s name printed on the ballot.

Not anymore. Republicans are busy dry-heaving over Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” grotesquerie, but they are utterly without alternatives. Even if Trump were to voluntarily cast himself into Mount Doom, his name would still be stuck on almost every ballot put before voters nationwide—because they’ve already been printed. In fact, the deadlines for states to certify candidates for the November election have all passed. What's more, federal law mandates that ballots be sent to overseas and military voters no later than 45 days before Election Day, which was over two weeks ago. And on top of that, at least 400,000 voters have already cast their ballots thanks to the popularity of early voting.

Some Republicans are pretending to be outraged right about now because they’re secretly nursing a false hope that they can somehow wake up from this nightmare with a different candidate representing them. They can dream on. They built this—and they own it.

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