If Newt Gingrich were not Newt Gingrich—if he were able to step back and analyze the collapse of his campaign at arm’s length—he would likely come up with a dramatic historical parallel for the unprecedented staff upheaval this week which has destroyed his hopes of attaining the presidential nomination and more. For those who are not history majors, a different comparison seems more apt—the first lines of David Mamet’s underrated “Spartan,” where a gunnery sergeant questions an out-of-breath Delta Force recruit: “You had your whole life to prepare for this moment. Why aren’t you ready?”

The Greek tragedian element of Gingrich’s downfall is beginning to become common knowledge, after being a behind-the-scenes problem for months—a problem that some of Gingrich’s closest advisors had warned of even before the stuttering inception of his campaign operation, even before the emails comparing the operation’s internal mood to scenes from “Downfall.”