If Trumpism were a full-fledged movement, a Trumpist candidate should have been able to crack at least 30 percent in a congressional district that recently lost a GM plant. Trump himself garnered 32 percent in Ryan’s blue-collar district during Wisconsin’s presidential primary, when another anti-establishment candidate, Ted Cruz, won the district by 19 points.

If Trumpism were a full-fledged movement, a Trump acolyte should have defeated at least one establishment Republican House or Senate candidate somewhere—anywhere—this year. But that hasn’t happened. Not yet, anyway.

This is not to say that issues like immigration and trade and nationalism more broadly weren’t important to Trump’s primary victory. They were. But those issues haven’t spurred a nationwide movement. And those issues weren’t even the most essential cause of Trump’s victory. What drove Trump to victory more than anything else was his personality and celebrity that earned him $3 billion in free media and allowed him to win a plurality of votes in a 17-candidate race.