Some Republicans have been trying to talk themselves into believing that Donald Trump would not be so bad as the Republican nominee for president. Maybe he really would scramble the political deck sufficiently, they think, to allow the party to retake the White House.

Those Republicans are whistling past the graveyard. A Trump nomination has as much chance of success in the general election as Trump University, or Trump Mortgage, or Trump Shuttle, or Trump Vodka, or Trump Casinos. Trump is an electoral disaster waiting to happen.

Demographic trends make clear that a Republican nominee who hopes to win a majority of the popular vote in 2016 must gain either 30 percent of the nonwhite vote or 65 percent of the white vote, a level not seen since President Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide sweep in 1984. Trump doesn’t stand a chance of doing either one.

Gain 30 percent of the nonwhite vote? Trump’s favorable to unfavorable ratings in the latest Post-ABC News national poll among nonwhites are 16 percent to 81 percent (72 percent strongly unfavorable); among Hispanics alone — the largest and fastest-growing minority group — they are 14 percent to 85 percent (74 percent strongly unfavorable). A Trump nomination could lock Hispanics into the Democratic column for a generation or more, threatening Republican presidential victories as far as the eye can see.