The Donald Lives!

Donald Trump turned in perhaps the most effective performance in the history of presidential debates on Sunday night.

As the day began, he had been denounced by his wife, Mike Pence, and his own staff for a tape of crude and lewd remarks in a decade-old “locker room” conversation on a bus with Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood.”

Tasting blood, the media were in a feeding frenzy. Trump is dropping out! Pence is bolting the ticket! Republican elites are about to disown and abandon the Republican nominee!

Sometime this weekend, Trump made a decision: If he is going down to defeat, he will go out as Trump, not some sniveling penitent begging forgiveness from hypocrites who fear and loathe him.

His first move was to host a press availability, before the debate, where a small sampling of Bill Clinton’s alleged victims — Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick — made brief statements endorsing Trump and denouncing the misogyny of the Clintons.Trump did not hesitate to overrule the suggestion of Mike Pence that we follow Clinton’s formula. He believes ISIS is our enemy, and if Syria, Russia, and Iran are attacking ISIS, we ought not to be fighting them.

As of sunrise Sunday, the media were writing Trump off as dead.

By Sunday night, they were as shocked and stunned as Hillary and Bill.

What did Trump accomplish in 18 hours?

He rattled Hillary Clinton, firmed up and rallied his base, halted the stampede of the cut-and-run Republicans, and exposed the hypocrisy of liberal and secular celebrants of the ’60s “sexual revolution,” who have suddenly gotten religion where Trump is involved.

Trump exposed the fraudulence of the Clintons’ clucking concern for sexually abused women, brought Pence back into camp, turned the tables and changed the subject from the Trump tapes to the Trump triumph at Washington University.

Upshot: The Donald is alive.

While his path to 270 electoral votes still looks more than problematic, there is a month to go before the election, and anything can happen.

Indeed, it already has — many times.

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