Sorry folks, it wasn't a fever dream...
So that happened. Remember nearly a year ago, when we were dismissing the orange one as a buffoon after Megyn Kelly schooled him in the first Republican debate? How we all thought that that would be it, that the sideshow would end, that somehow the slap fight that was the Republican primary field would sort itself out and Jeb or Marco or goodness, even Ted would prevail?
Now all those of us who snickered and side-eyed, who empathically declared what a joke his campaign was, who told ourselves and our colleagues and our Gods that there was no way in all hell Trump would be on the ballot in November… I, like others, am now left blinking my eyes and wondering what in all hell the next six months will look like.
As The Guardian points out, he is "a man who actively demeans women, has encouraged violence at his campaign rallies, would ban all Muslims from entering the US and recently seemed undisturbed by an endorsement from a leader of the Ku Klux Klan."
Let this sink in: Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States of America.
Some headlines:
Donald Trump’s Victory Has Some in G.O.P. Agonizing — or Bolting (The New York Times)
Trump Has Won and the Republican Party Is Broken (New York Magazine)
Why Cruz, and the G.O.P., Lost to Trump (New Yorker)
How Donald Trump Speaks to—and About—Minorities (The Atlantic)
Millions of Us Are Strangers in Our Own Party (Conservative Review)
America's Trump nightmare has arrived (The Guardian)
Trump ticket looms over vulnerable GOP senators (The Hill)
John Kasich Sticking Around for a Few More Sandwiches (Gawker)