The Republican Party is in meltdown over Donald Trump's sexually aggressive comments from 11 years ago.
[...]
Senior Republican Jason Chaffetz, who led the fight against Hillary Clinton as Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight, has now reportedly withdrawn his endorsement of Mr Trump.
Republicans are stuck in Trump 'nightmare'
This is serious — this is a political nightmare. Mr Trump may have offended half the voting population of the United States, at least.
The one man we haven't yet heard from is Indiana Governor, Trump defender-in-chief and vice presidential nominee Mike Pence.
Mr Pence is a deeply, profoundly religious man who has been at pains to explain away Mr Trump's outrageous rhetoric at every turn — he's now silent.
Just this week evangelical pastors laid their hands on Mr Trump and prayed with him at the International Church of Las Vegas.
He promised to uphold and defend their cherished Christian values as president. How will those religious Republicans feel now?
Jeb Bush, John Kasich and multiple moderates who have been furious that Donald Trump was attempting to "insult his way to the White House" are now tweeting their fury as well.
But the party is stuck.
Mr Trump's name is on the ballot in every one of the 50 states.
"Nearly all the ballots have been printed," according to Ballotpedia and early voting is already underway in some states.
The best they can hope for now is to siphon millions of dollars they were going to allocate to his campaign and try and salvage their control of the Congress.
[...]
For Mr Trump there are very few options left to him. Can you imagine him giving a soul-bearing, prime-time TV broadcast mea culpa a la Jimmy Swaggart?
No, neither can I.
[it's hard to beat such hypocritical theater as sickening as that one .. yet Trump has been doing his best to, in his own swaggering way.]
Mr Trump has tried weathering the storm and failed. He has tried doubling down and failed. The only tactic he's yet to try is quitting, but that is because his brand is synonymous with "winning". "We're going to win so much, you're going to be so sick and tired of winning," he said.
Now his fellow Republicans and Americans are just sick and tired of his scandals.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.