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.
Fallout from Trump’s continuing attack on California judge Gonzalo Curiel continues. Speaker Paul Ryan straight-up called Trump’s recent behavior racist this morning, while swing-state GOP Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois announced this afternoon that he will not be voting for Trump in November. (I tried to explain here why this controversy, of all the offensive things Trump has said and done, seems to be one that Republicans like Ryan feel the need to distance themselves from.) As Lindsey Graham put it, the Curiel affair is a convenient “off-ramp” for those who’ve endorsed Trump but aren’t sure if they want to stick with him.
Crucially, most of the Republicans who are condemning Trump’s racism are also making excuses for it on his behalf and attempting to explain why it doesn’t disqualify him from being president. I’m not going to lower the danger level below one horseman until we get to the point where there’s a legitimate chance that Trump is not going to be the GOP nominee. But right now it’s, like, a wobbly horse.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images, Wikimedia Commons
