The Slatest

Today’s Trump Apocalypse Watch: #NeverTrump Collapses

Donald Trump at the California Republican Party Convention in Burlingame, California, on Friday.

Ramin Talaie/Getty Images

The Trump Apocalypse Watch is a subjective daily estimate, using a scale of one to four horsemen, of how likely it is that Donald Trump will be elected president, thus triggering an apocalypse in which we all die.

The news today was all about different Republicans wearily dropping their objections to Donald Trump becoming the party’s nominee. Most prominent were Marco Rubio and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Rubio, who once sold #NeverTrump memorabilia on his website, said the real estate heir has a “valid” claim to the nomination; Pence tepidly endorsed Ted Cruz, but only after making sure to praise Trump. Meanwhile, the Washington Post spoke to a number of different establishment-ish figures who say that word on the street is that it’s going to be Trump’s nomination and everyone might as well get used to it.

Should this make us more concerned about the possibility of a Trump presidency? I don’t think so, really—we already knew he was likely to be nominated, and the prominent Republicans acknowledging as much are doing so grudgingly at best. An enthusiastic, unified party may well eventually emerge to give Trump its strong backing in November, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons