For those hoping that the turn of the calendar page from August to September might also bring with it a change in the presidential polls, the publication of the latest CNN/ORC national poll was a disappointment. Far from showing an ebbing of the tide of populist sentiment that drove Donald Trump to the top of the Republican race, the survey gives the reality star his highest numbers yet. Trump leads the 17-person GOP field with 32 percent. His closest competitor is Ben Carson at 19 percent with none of the others in double digits. If that was sufficient proof that the summer of Trump isn’t over, the Donald let loose with more insults this week directed against his rivals. Trump dismissed Carson as a low energy “okay doctor” who is “not a great religious figure.” But he’s getting even more attention for a quote in a Rolling Stone profile in which he mocks Carly Fiorina’s looks. Having smeared a war hero, Mexicans, Megyn Kelly, and anyone else that crossed him without it hurting his standing in the polls, it’s foolish for anyone to think that these Trump insults will come back to haunt him. The better question to ask this week is whether his more sober opponents are starting to realize that the force that is driving voters to Trump isn’t so much his considerable entertainment value but the growing frustration over a lawless Obama administration.

The trouble with most analyses of Trump’s appeal is that they generally focus on him rather than what makes voters think a person who acts in this manner is remotely suitable for the presidency. Mind you, some of these pieces have been brilliant. Writers such as Jonah Goldberg, George Will, and our own Peter Wehner have done a great job discussing why Trump isn’t a conservative and the danger of elevating such a demagogue to power. But Trump’s appearance at the rally against the Iran nuclear deal yesterday in Washington — where he overshadowed every other speaker and even the issue itself while monopolizing press coverage of the event — should have been a reminder of why so many on the right are attracted to him.

This week the country is watching as Congressional Republicans flail away impotently as President Obama shoves a dangerous nuclear deal down the nation’s throat. He’s doing so in spite of the fact that majorities in both Houses of Congress oppose it as well as a clear majority of the public. He’s even doing it while keeping parts of the agreement secret, a clear violation of the very law that was passed to provide Congressional oversight of the matter rather than following the Constitution’s treaty clause.

As with the president’s ability to make an end run around Congress on immigration — the issue that catapulted Trump into the lead of the GOP race back in July — Republicans are helpless to stop Obama from doing as he likes. This says a lot more about the power of the modern presidency than it does about their incompetence though there has been some of that, too. Senator Bob Corker, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was suckered into pushing a bill that gave Obama permission to avoid presenting the nuclear deal as a treaty that would have required 67 votes for passage. Corker was an unwitting ally of the administration but, in fairness, it must be noted that even if he hadn’t played the fool on this issue in the absence of a 60-seat filibuster-proof GOP majority, there is little the Republicans could have done to stop Obama.

It bears repeated that the fact that a majority of Republicans polled are backing the trio of non-politicians in the race constitutes a vote of no confidence in GOP politicians. That may not be entirely fair, but it is a measure of their level of frustration. Given the ease with which Obama has rolled over the Republicans on Iran and most any other issue on which he has taken them on, it’s hard to blame them.

But even if the summer of discontent is not over, that doesn’t mean that Trump isn’t making mistakes that may eventually come back to haunt him. At some point over the course of the next few months, the 17-person field that he has dominated is going to start sorting itself out. Some of those at the bottom of the polls are going to run out of money. Others will begin to feel the pressure from donors and Republican activists to put the party and the country first and get behind someone who can stop Trump rather than continue to divide the majority of voters who clearly don’t want any part of his show.

Some wise pundits continue to tell us that the normal rules of political warfare will eventually reapply and that Trump will fall perhaps as rapidly as he rose. That’s encouraging for those of us who see him as utterly unsuited for the presidency and as likely to implement liberal policies as conservative ones. Indeed, perhaps next week’s CNN debate at the Reagan Library will be the moment when the laws of political gravity may start to bring him down when he goes face-to-face with Fiorina, the woman whose face he mocked. But it won’t happen by magic. Nor will it be purely a matter of voters finally realizing the truth about this vulgarian. So long as Obama is riding roughshod over the Constitution, a lot of GOP voters are going to want someone who is seen as a fighter. If Trump remains the one who best fits that tag, he’s not going to go away.