As Hillary Clinton’s edge in the polls has widened, so too has the scope of the shadowy cabal that Donald Trump alleges is conspiring against him. At rallies and campaign stops in recent weeks, Trump has railed against a growing number of co-conspirators—the media, international banks, Paul Ryan, the women accusing him of sexual assault, rigged voting machines—all participants in a global “power structure” that the Republican nominee claims is working to elect Clinton and destroy U.S. sovereignty.

In what was one of his more unhinged television appearances to date, Trump defended his claim that he is the target of a nefarious voter-fraud plot during an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Thursday night. “I think things are going on that are not good,” he said, pointing to reports of ballot confusion in Texas. (The isolated incidents have been attributed to user error.) When the Fox News host, who has previously voiced concerns that Trump’s “rigged” election claims are inaccurate and unpatriotic, asked if he had any hard evidence to support his claim, the presidential hopeful conceded that he did not, but identified a new faction in the wide-ranging conspiracy against him: the dead. “There are 1.8 million people who are dead who are registered to vote. And some of those people vote. So I wonder how that happens . . .” he added.

While the names of deceased voters often remain erroneously on registration lists, incidents of voter fraud—by the living or the dead—are extremely rare, experts say. But as Trump’s polling numbers have collapsed in the wake of his hot-mic scandal and allegations of sexual assault and harassment from nearly a dozen women, the former reality TV star has doubled down on his claims that a massive network of conspirators is aligned against him. “When the people who control the political power in our society can rig investigations like [Clinton’s] investigation was rigged, can rig polls, you see the phony polls, and rig the media, they can wield absolute power over your life, your economy, and your country and benefit big time by it,” Trump said at a campaign event in Florida earlier this week, The Washington Post reports. Two weeks ago, the G.O.P. nominee spoke in similarly melodramatic terms, alleging that his campaign is a “true existential threat” to the global establishment and the international elite, who, he asserts, “plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, [Clinton’s] special-interest friends, and her donors.”

While Trump’s status as a political outsider has always been a cornerstone of his campaign, in recent weeks the billionaire’s speeches has grown both darker and more grandiose as his path to victory has narrowed. Critics say his attacks on the “global financial powers” echo anti-Semitic themes, raising questions about the sources of his rhetoric. Jonathan Greenblatt, the director and chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Washington Post that his rants are “straight out of the Protocols of Zion,” a fake anti-Semitic text that pretends to describe a Jewish plot to control the world.

As his critics have grown louder, Trump has grown more litigious, too, threatening legal action against his detractors with intensified fervor. After The New York Times published the accounts of two women who accused Trump of groping them, the real-estate mogul threatened the newspaper with a lawsuit. And last week, during a speech that was billed as a preview of his first 100 days in office, Trump dedicated an inordinate amount of time to criticizing the women who have brought allegations against him and threatened to sue them as well. On Thursday, the G.O.P. nominee told Bill O’Reilly that it was an “illegal act” for NBC to release the recording of the 2005 hot-mic conversation with then Access Hollywood personality Billy Bush, and said he would be looking into taking action against the network after the election.

The deluge of attacks Trump has unleashed in an effort to galvanize his supporters and salvage his badly bruised ego may have a lasting effect on voters. Despite widespread condemnation of Trump’s “rigged” rhetoric—from both sides of the aisle—a recent poll reveals that more than 4 in 10 Trump supporters won’t recognize a Clinton presidency as legitimate. And as Vanity Fair contributing editor T.A. Frank delineates, “Trust among Americans is in ever diminishing supply” and “repairing the rifts will take a long time.” Just because all signs point to a Clinton landslide, that doesn’t mean the next four years will be free of Trump’s influence or the impact of his conspiracy theories.