THE CULT OF TRUMP, AND NATIVISM, WILL LIVE ON AFTER ELECTION LOSS.

Donald Trump is no longer campaigning to become president of the United States, if he ever was actually doing that.

As the Republican nominee’s glowering, peevish debate performance Sunday made clear, he is now battling to preserve and fortify his insurgent personality cult. The prize is the extremist, alt- right shard of whatever remains of the Republican party, post- Nov. 8 — and likely, the penumbra of going down to glorious defeat in a “rigged” system.

This means the threats Trump poses to democracy, pluralism, free trade and the rule of law, will not disappear once Hillary Clinton is elected president — even if the scale of her victory is historic, as polls now indicate. If anything, given rising disparities in skill and income driven primarily by offshoring and automation, the U. S. nativist movement is poised to grow.

Job 1 for a new Clinton administration will be to determine how to cope with millions of diehard Trumpistas, furious at being denied the win they were told was within their grasp and absolutely convinced — because their champion has been telling them so for months — that the election was stolen.

Longer t erm, t he bigger challenge will be for the Democrats to address the pervasive sense of bitterness, grievance and alienation that has fuelled Trump’s rise and continues to put a firm basement under his support, somewhere north of 35 per cent, no matter how vile the things he says or how grotesque the falsehoods he spins.

Is it actually safe to assume Clinton has Nov. 8 locked up, as Republicans go to war with one another over Trump? No. In the year of Brexit and given his previous multiple returns from the dead, that would be foolish.

Nevertheless, it’s nigh impossible now to see a path to the 270 electoral college votes the GOP ticket needs to win, which goes a fair way toward explaining Trump’s descent in recent days to a l evel of extremity that seems crazed, even for him. In effect, he has retreated to his inner court, where his most loyal and extreme support lies, and is piling earth around it.

The math, for Republicans, is now beyond brutal. Among the 13 per cent of Americans who are black, and the 17 per cent who are Latino ( both white and black), Trump’s support is virtually nil, because of his expressed bigotry toward Mexicans and his dog- whistle embrace of white supremacists. Among the 70 per cent of Americans who are white, roughly a third are university educated — a demographic with whom Trump had already faced an uphill battle. And, of course, roughly half are Democrats.

Then comes the insurmountable: Trump’s “grab ’ em by the p----” remarks, which emerged Friday, are repulsive enough to have put him out of contention for the presidency. His catastrophic performance Sunday, during which he stood for an extended period directly behind Clinton, scowling and looking vaguely predatory, compounded the harm. His outrageous threat to jail his opponent, which he repeated Monday, completes the picture. Trump has gone full Mussolini.

But Trumpism is bigger than the man. For evidence, juxtapose a map of the two parties’ current support, with one of regional income distribution.

The safe red (Republican) states swing from the Deep South (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina) northward in a band through the Midwest ( Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota), and into the upper Midwest. These are also the regions with the highest concentrations of Americans living below t he poverty l i ne ( about US$ 24,000 for a family of four).

The key s wing s t ates ( Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania), where Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders launched their respective insurgencies, are regions where traditional economies have been disrupted by globalization. Hence Trump’s repeated promises to “bring back our jobs,” resurrect heavy manufacturing and reopen shuttered steel mills. He’s giving voters in populous, influential states precisely the comfort they want to hear.

That it is purest fantasy, impossible given the reality of global trade and the catastrophic consequences of interrupting such trade, is almost beside the point. Trump has given voice to a new constituency. That he is personally unfit to be president is a historical fluke. His losing next month will not prevent states such as Ohio or Pennsylvania from going full nativist in future, unless more people there can see the hope of a better economic future.

Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, have run a fine campaign so far, if the objective is simply to destroy the Trump- Pence ticket ( or let it destroy itself ). But their very success raises questions about what they’re doing now to prepare for the day after victory.

A future President Hillary Clinton will need something like a Marshall Plan — a New Deal might be a better term — to bring hope to the Rust Belt. Or she’ll face another revolt in four years, likely led by someone more personally fit, and capable, than Trump.

HE’S GIVING VOTERS ... THE COMFORT THEY WANT TO HEAR.