"I’ve talked to numerous political pros and quite a few actual billionaires, and the totally uncorroborated theory most of them hold is that Trump never expected to do this well. It was a PR stunt that got out of hand. The dog caught the car, and now he doesn’t know what to do with it."

I'd put my money on this. Pity the poor pols who jumped on his bandwagon and will go down with Trump's Titanic while the Donald will sail merrily away in the only lifeboat ( a yacht of course )available. Oh the humanity!