Trump knows better than most that loss lingers on a person like a rancid odor.
Trump, like every other president, had a moment, but now the sun is setting on that moment. The country and his own party are drifting away from him. He is shrinking in open view.
But, if Trump is not the leader of his party now, who is? By default, even if diminished, he retains the title, even without the power. So, in a way, the Republican Party is a runaway chariot. No one fully controls it.
The party became so anti-establishment and pro-iconoclast that it actually came to reject institutional procedure and tenured professionalism. You can only operate so long with a throw-the-bums-out mentality before you run out of “bums” and realize that you’re left with no one to replace them but scoundrels.
The people who ground the workings of the House to a halt are the progeny of Trump’s chaos.
In Greek mythology, Cronus, who had overthrown his father, Uranus, learned that one of his children was destined do the same to him. So he ate them all. But his sixth child, Zeus, came along and was hidden by Zeus’ mother. When Zeus was older, he forced Cronus to disgorge his siblings (gross, I know), and together Cronus’s children overthrew their father.
The Republican Party, and Trump himself, are also caught in this loop: They topple their party’s “establishment” every few years only to become the establishment in need of toppling.
The party has completely lost sight of the values of wisdom and service, of paying one’s dues and working one’s way up. For it, every cycle is a revolution and a war. In the long run, this is bad for the party and for the country.
But, in the short run, it’s even worse for Trump. His protégés are coming to either overthrow him or put him out to pasture, and there is precious little he can do to stop them.