The more viewers experience Hillary as Mommy Dearest, and the less they see Trump as Captain Queeg, the more key missing independent and Republican moderate voters may sneak into the ballot booth, vote for Trump, and deny they ever considered such a thing.

A final note: Mr. Trump said he wanted to run to represent millions of the silenced. These millions, whether or not he was the first or last primary choice, took him at his word, as their last chance to stop what will likely be a 16-year project to fundamentally transform the U.S. into something that would terrify the Founders. He was not the choice of many conservatives, but for better or worse he is now their only viable choice — and that requires a seriousness that was lacking in the first debate.

Trump owes it to these forgotten Deplorables to prepare for the last two debates and to talk about them, and not himself. If he doesn’t, he will wreck their hopes, betray their trust, and walk away a loser as few others in history.

But if Trump fights Hillary with a coherent plan that is the antithesis of the last eight years, rather than harping about his business reputation and obsessing with the trivial, he still might win a conservative Congress, a cadre of loyal conservative cabinet officers, a rare chance to remake the Supreme Court in a fashion not seen since the 1930s — and at 70 years of age make all his prior celebrity achievements of the past seem as nothing in comparison.