Watching Establishment Republicans swoon like Victorian ladies of quality at Donald Trump’s man cave musings (the old term “locker room talk” being no longer appropriate thanks to recent cultural progress), one is tempted to wonder how leaders of a really serious Republican party would have responded to the challenge presented by their candidate’s inconvenient words.

In this alternative scenario, theoretical serious Republican leaders would first and foremost want, of course, to keep hold of both houses of Congress, their jobs, perks and opportunities for a prosperous Beltway future, but would not be above turning candidate Trump’s untimely discomfiture to their own advantage. After all, winning the White House, even with a candidate like Trump whom they simultaneously fear and scorn, would be better than not winning it at all. Had Trump’s path to victory been smooth, propelled by a wave of populist discontent independent of party mandarins and all of the hangers on, mouthpieces and rent-seekers that populate establishmentarian Republican/conservative circles, his tenure would promise a succession of hindrances and downright obstacles to the agendas of Establishment types. But Pu##ytalk changed all that. Right now Trump’s decade-old gaucheries have handed his opponents, including partisan media, new and formidable weapons to turn on him, weapons that could prove fatal. They also offer the opposition within his own party a golden opportunity. Beset as he is right now, Trump would be better off with party leaders in Lyndon Johnson’s formulation, “inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.”

The alternative scenario’s serious Republicans would therefore right now be demanding a price from candidate Trump for their support -- now when it is most needed -- to get over this rough spot before a second debate performance either helps or lengthens the odds against him. They would seek deals on a variety of policy, legislative, and personnel matters and try to protect their new investment in Trump with demands for a degree of influence over campaign tactics and strategy, and perhaps even commitments regarding the candidate’s deportment until November 8. Serious party leaders with serious disagreements with the candidate over his conception of his constitutional role and theirs would attempt to use the opportunity of Trump’s current troubles to redirect him, forging compromises and establishing a modus vivendi for a Trump presidency more amenable to the priorities and style of his erstwhile Republican opponents. They would hold a series of grand meetings, and emerge tut-tutting about not excusing the dreadful behavior but declaring sonorously that the best interest of the nation and the party demand unity at this crucial time, etc. That is serious politics.

Instead, Republican politicians and cheerleaders are hoisting their collective skirts in mock dismay, claiming to be convinced that a society that routinely rewards the most raunchy public speech and action of others will recoil from Donald Trump’s. From a collection of placeholders who have yet to rise effectively to the defense of a single principle, who have failed to hold accountable a single bureaucratic would-be tyrant, who have delivered on no campaign promise regarding spending, ObamaCare, the Veterans’ Administration, EPA overreach, the border, or any other issues, Donald Trump’s vulgarities in 2005 is the ground on which they expect us to believe they have chosen finally to stand.

A real political party would be trying to make an internal deal to save the presidential election. A significant part of the Republican Party appears instead to be bent on abandoning that election for the "greater good" of preserving its elected officials and apparat’s interests. They have honed the skill of making second best work well for them in Washington, personally and institutionally, and are telling us that they are not prepared now to risk what they have for the challenge of actually governing.