The Iowa caucuses are seven weeks from today. While AFP Action says it will deploy “the largest grassroots operation in the country and a presence in all fifty states” behind Haley, it’s hard to imagine her beating Trump. It feels like another exercise in political delusion: a powerful mainstream Republican force pretending Trump doesn’t control the party.

There’s also deep irony here. As the major financial and political force behind the reactionary, anti-Obama Tea Party movement, AFP helped create Trump, the man it is now trying to defeat.