It’s hard to see how the last four days could have gone any worse for Republicans. Now they have a Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, who is trying to walk a treacherous middle path between swing voters and Trump’s base. This would be hard to pull off in the best of circumstances, but Trump wants to make it as agonizing as possible in retribution for Ryan’s perceived betrayal and unloosed another tweetstorm against the speaker today. Trump himself is badly wounded, falling behind in the polls, and has apparently concluded what he needs to do is unleash himself.

At the very least, this means that the news is going to be dominated by stories of Republican discord for days and perhaps the rest of the campaign. It means, if Trump’s tweet is to be taken seriously, that Trump is going to reject the modicum of discipline and normalcy that buoyed his campaign after mid-August. And it means that no matter how awful the last couple of days have been, this could get much worse.