So we’ve established that Donald Trump can lead Hillary Clinton in a poll, indeed in several polls. This should concern liberals and Democrats and anyone who fears a Trump presidency, but it shouldn’t inspire raw panic. Trump is benefiting from having clinched his nomination; Clinton is suffering through the last stand of Bernie Sanders. Trump has climbed to about 43 percent, not 50 percent; Hillary has lost support that she should be able to win back once it’s just the two of them. Barring the unforeseen, Trump’s path to the presidency is still obscure, his likely coalition insufficient, his chances of losing by a comfortable margin quite high.

But the unforeseen does have a way of happening. So with the race in a temporary dead heat, it’s worth pondering what unexpected events might pave Trump’s still-unlikely path to the White House.

A lot of people would start with the economy, where the idea that we’re just one financial meltdown away from a Trump presidency has become the pessimist’s conventional wisdom lately.

I’m not so sure that’s the right way to look at Trump’s appeal, however. He’s done well with working-class voters, and his promise to bring back jobs has resonated, but it’s not as if he’s been riding to victory amid a swooning economy, or even an economy with the high unemployment rates that prevailed in 2012. Like Bernie Sanders, his populism has fed on stagnation and diminished expectations, not panic or collapse: Its success is the fruit of an unsatisfying stability, not a vertiginous decline. A real collapse might actually not be good for his prospects, since the idea that America needs him to “blow things up” in Washington might seem considerably less appealing if the world economy were actually blowing up on its own.