Losing the election wouldn’t necessarily be the end of Donald Trump, as nice as that might be to imagine. It might only be the beginning.

Indeed, there’s one particular second act for Trump that makes an uncanny amount of sense. A Trump-branded TV network, whether online or on cable, could simultaneously be profitable for Trump, outrageously entertaining — and a continued catastrophe for our hyper-polarized political system.

The 2016 presidential race revitalized Trump’s reputation as a ratings draw. When he announced his campaign last June, “The Apprentice” franchise was in the ratings decline common to aging shows. The Miss Universe pageant was bouncing around from night to night in search of viewers. His campaign let Trump insist that both shows were victims of political correctness, rather than diminished interest. It let Trump prove that he could draw audiences to a new arena: cable news.

But it’s not merely Trump’s metastasized personal brand that makes a Trump TV network such a wickedly smart business idea. The conservative media landscape is ripe for a realignment.

A number of conservative media entrepreneurs responded to the Obama administration by founding news publications. And though their successes are mixed, they have explored new models for content and distribution that another organization – the Trump organization, perhaps — might be able to use on a larger scale.

Breitbart.com, the flagship of the late Andrew Breitbart’s network of sites, claimed a niche as the site that would give Trump the kind of coverage he believes to be fair. Glenn Beck’s streaming television channel the Blaze has been plagued by management turmoil, but Beck leveraged his subscribers into a 2012 deal with the Dish Network to distribute the Blaze as a cable channel.

Meantime, the election, which once seemed as though it might be a triumph for Fox News, instead became a conundrum for the network. Trump’s feud with Megyn Kelly sharpened the contrast between her and Bill O’Reilly as she prepares to negotiate a new contract, and Trump’s unexpected success has pushed Fox News executives to confront just how far into the fever swamps they dare to tread.

Finally, a number of significant Republican media figures are free agents, or nearing the ends of their contracts – and available, potentially, for TrumpTV.

Mike Huckabee opted out of his Fox News show in 2015 as he prepared to run for president again; he has since returned as a contributor but doesn’t have his own show. Former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s forays into reality television have been less than successful, but she has shown surprising persistence as a political commentator.

And most significant, Rush Limbaugh’s monster-size deal with iHeart Media runs out this year. A start-up would be hard-pressed to match his $400 million contract, but his comments about law student Sandra Fluke made Limbaugh so radioactive to advertisers that he might be available to another bidder at a reduced price. If not Limbaugh, a Trump television network might be able to convince conservative conspiracy theorist and Trump backer Alex Jones that he could have wider distribution without having to give up the editorial independence that allows him to declare 9/11 an inside job and speculate about sinister chemicals in jet contrails.

Trump himself probably lacks the patience and eye for detail that would be required to scoop up these disparate pieces of the conservative radio, television and online landscapes and mold them into a new-media golem. But in an environment where Al Gore could sell Current TV for $500 million, someone eager to capitalize financially and politically on the enthusiasm for Trump could step into that void.

In aesthetic terms, such a network could be a baroque marvel. In political ones, it would be catastrophic.

Fox News has a long record of providing lawmakers with incentives for prolonging unproductive investigations into supposed scandals. But vast, paranoid territory lies beyond the boundaries Fox News has staked out for itself.

Consolidating the small nation-states that occupy that intellectual landscape into a single outlet would create a powerful alternate reality. And as this election suggests, a significant number of Americans already see the country and the world in ways that bear little resemblance to the one occupied by their fellow citizens.

A network that unified and amplified those fictions wouldn’t just allow Trump to remain a player in American politics without being elected president. It would make it harder for us to agree on the facts that define our country, and the tools that are acceptable to use as we try to improve it.

(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Alyssa Rosenberg