Fearmongering is all Trump’s got, and he does it well

can articulate it and vent it, repackage it and glamorize it — their gratitude and appreciation will be expressed as loyalty and adulation.

Trump said to these people that their enemies were his enemies. Everyone they saw as a threat to their cultural heritage, societal dominance and personal privilege — Muslims, Mexicans, immigrants, liberals in general — he would attack on their behalf.

Ever the projectionist, Trump repeatedly encouraged violence at his campaign rallies and has recently taken to casting Democrats as a mob. In fact, his supporters are the mob.

In the movie “Gladiator,” a senator says of the new emperor:

“I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they’ll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they’ll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate, it’s the sand of the Colosseum. He’ll bring them death — and they will love him for it.”

Trump’s hatred, racism, insecurity, antiintellectualism and grudge against the elite society that had always disdained him was perfectly suited for conservatives who were entertaining the same notions but had no one to openly champion their intolerance with effrontery.

On Monday in Houston, Trump was again whipping a rally crowd into a fear frenzy with his dystopian vision of America. He said:

“Democrat immigration policies allow poisonous drugs and MS-13 to pour into our country. And Democrat sanctuary cities release violent criminals from jail and straight into your neighborhoods.”

As the audience chanted, “CNN sucks,” he said, “Don’t worry. I don’t like them either, OK?” He added:

“Do you know how the caravan started? Does everybody know what this means? I think the Democrats had something to do with it.”

There is no proof that the caravan of Honduran migrants traveling through Mexico toward the United States was instigated by the Democrats, and the claim is ridiculous on its face. He continued:

“So as the caravan — and, look, that is an assault on our country. That’s an assault. And in that caravan you have some very bad people. You have some very bad people. And we can’t let that happen to our country.”

There is no proof that there are “very bad people” in the caravan, and it is more than a thousand miles away from our border.

He said: “The Democrats have launched an assault on the sovereignty of our country, the security of our nation and the safety of every single American.”

He said: “The Democrats want to replace freedom with socialism. They want to replace Texas values with Nancy Pelosi values. And they want to replace the rule of law with the rule of the mob. That’s what is happening. And the Democrats would rather destroy American communities than defend America’s borders.”

He also said: “A future under Democratic mob rule would be a total catastrophe.”

As ever, there were chants of “lock her up” with respect to Hillary Clinton.

And he said this: “You know what I am? I’m a nationalist, OK? I’m a nationalist. Nationalist. Nothing — use that word. Use that word.”

This is all from just one rally. He has held scores of them.

This is the language in the air. This is the rhetorical backdrop as we await an investigation and answers about who sent bombs to Democrats and the CNN offices.

This is the madness, fearmongering and mendacity that must end.

But it won’t. This is all Trump has. It is who he is. Without it, he doesn’t really exist.