He can’t campaign on competent handling of a crisis, which is why he forced states to reopen in the middle of the pandemic, is denying information to and suppressing advice from the Center for Disease Control and is running a character assassination campaign on his own expert from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

He can’t campaign on the economy, because it’s in free fall right now as we head into a new global Great Depression, where nothing he can do, save for adopting Democratic policies, will turn that ship around.

He doesn’t (yet) have a war to glom onto, to compel Americans to rally around the flag against a foreign foe, because nobody was dumb enough to pick up the many gauntlets Trump has thrown, from his cruise missiles to Syria to his assassination of an Iranian general.

All he has is racism, and this is why, despite literally everything about his 3.5 years in office giving ample evidence as to his supreme narcissism, his gross incompetence, his craven mores and his ensuing dementia, he still commands support from 40% of this country.

The reason is the same reason no Democrat in the last 60 years has won the white vote, because Democrats believe in a pluralist society. It’s the reason a serial philander and suspected rapist commanded 53% of the vote of white women. It’s the reason it doesn’t really matter who the nominated Democratic candidate is for the campaign strategy is exactly the same: Trump has the white supremacist vote, and is campaigning on racism alone.

Even if Trump should lose, his tally is the best census this country has ever done of how many outright racist bigots we currently have to contend with, and right now it looks to be Civil War levels of popular.