Republican nominee Donald Trump's burn-down-the-house approach to campaigning over the past couple of weeks has led to speculation that he doesn't actually want to win the election.

The theory: that he's never had any real interest in being president of the United States. What he has wanted all along is to build a base of rabid, conspiracy-loving, fact-doubting supporters whose outrage at the "rigged system" will make them ideal consumers of a new Trump news product.

Hence his determined refusal to bone up on the issues of the day and his even more determined insistence that as president he would jail his opponent, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton -- an anti-democratic clarion call that sends his core backers into paroxysms of joy.

Since the leak last Friday of a 2005 video of him privately telling then "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that he gropes women without their consent, Trump has doubled down on conspiracy theories about and vicious attacks on Clinton. Bush, meanwhile, is now reportedly negotiating his exit from NBC.

A month ago, Trump and Clinton were about even in the polls. The latest survey from NBC and the Wall Street Journal gives Clinton an 11-point lead.

And yet Trump continues to focus on his base rather than try to reach out to independents and traditional Republicans.

To have any hope of winning the election, Fox News host Shep Smith pointed out this week, Trump must win over a sizable share of suburban Republican professional women. "He has not made a play for them," Smith said.

The Fox talker added: "What does he do" with these core supporters after the election? "Does he give them a media network? ... It's all set up not as a guy who's trying to win what's left to get, but a guy who has another agenda."

This is not a new, or idle, thought. In June, Vanity Fair reported that "Trump is indeed considering creating his own media business, built on the audience that has supported him thus far in his bid to become the next president of the United States. According to several people briefed on the discussions, the presumptive Republican nominee is examining the opportunity presented by the 'audience' currently supporting him."

Two months later, the New York Times reported that Trump and his son-in-law, New York Observer publisher Jared Kushner, "have quietly explored becoming involved with a media holding, either by investing in one or by taking one over."

It should be noted that as soon as Roger Ailes, the man who turned Fox News into a ratings behemoth, was booted from Fox over sexual harassment allegations, Trump snapped him up as an adviser.

The "alt-right" Breitbart News website might be the starting place for a new Trump media empire. His campaign CEO, Stephen K. Bannon, is a former Breitbart honcho who privately described the site a year ago as "Trump Central." He praised Trump in the email exchange not as a Republican or a conservative but as "a nationalist" who wants to shut down immigration.

Over and over during his presidential run Trump has attacked the media, insisting reporters "are so dishonest." By turning his supporters ever more against the press -- including the conservative Fox News, which he has variously attacked and embraced as it has suited him -- he opens space for a new player in the market.

The question now might be: Will he hire Billy Bush?

-- Douglas Perry