When does it become a necessity for a political party to disown a campaign? This is the question that has hung over the Republican Party since the middle of May, when it became clear that Donald Trump had closed in on his 1,237 delegates, and now has assumed different forms: The moral one, or when does Trump’s unique mix of coarseness and cruelty start to corrode the Party of Lincoln to the point that its moral fabric becomes irreparable; and the practical one, which is when does that coarseness and cruelty, which every day seems to find some new and before-this-unthinkable means of expression, start to become an unbearable burden for Republican candidates who have to win an election in other than deeply red states?
Was it when Trump trashed John McCain’s war record? Was it when he mocked a disabled reporter? Was it when he tried to rouse a mob against the “Mexican judge” (born in Indiana) who was hearing a case brought against him by enraged victims of one of his so many scams? Or was it on the morning of July 29, when he launched a full-bore assault on the parents of Army Captain Humayun Khan, killed in Iraq in 2004, who spoke out against him at the Democratic convention on the night before?
