Trump Is Not a Loose Cannon

In the brief span since the nation awoke Sunday to news of the largest gun massacre in U.S. history, Donald Trump has tweeted that the killings are evidence of his own wisdom, and has called on President Barack Obama to resign for his failure to use the preferred Republican rhetoric -- "radical Islam" -- in describing the attack. Trump then went on news shows on Monday morning to insinuate that Obama is a fellow traveler of Islamic terrorists, essentially a mole inside the White House.

The presumptive Republican nominee moves from offense to offense so rapidly that a new shock eclipses the first before it can be mentally processed. Tweets and oral speech are Trump's natural media. Many Republicans are still seeking rationales to help them overlook the threat carried by these casual messages. They hope that Trump will somehow prove more responsible, and less toxic, if he has a political party or a White House staff or some other mediating institution to constrain his worst impulses.