Less than two months before voting starts in Iowa, Donald Trump remains the most popular candidate among Republicans. Most observers said it wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen. A few days after The Donald’s announcement, we wrote a column surveying the GOP field. We didn’t even include Trump. Boy were we wrong.

And so, as observers and historians of conservatism, we ask: Why is this man still here? Mediocre performances in several debates, an endless string of absurd remarks, continued failure (it increasingly looks like a refusal) to articulate a policy agenda and clear evidence that he has no history of political commitment to anything — none of it has eroded Trump’s lead.