What if Trump, albeit a winner, decides not to serve?

CLEVELAND — If elected, will he serve?

The most recent of the delicious conspiracy theories surrounding Donald Trump is this: having won the Republican nomination, he’d refuse to campaign for the job, leaving the party in one hell of a pinch, and Hillary Clinton sitting pretty. Or, in the alternative, he’d campaign hard against Clinton, win the White House, but then abdicate the office.

No, really, this is an actual thing. It was reported in the New York Times, and was repeated in Business Insider, and on CNN Politics, and, of course, Wonkette.

The Trump-won’t-serve meme is actually the latest permutation of an even older conspiracy theory, the one that holds that Bill Clinton actually hatched the idea of Trump running, urging him to campaign as the most outrageous, most offensive version of himself. Although nobody else saw the appeal, Bill Clinton — with his keen feel for the mood of the public — knew Trump would confound the conventional Republicans who’d be more effective foils for Hillary Clinton in a general election.

Not only that, but Clinton knew a Trump candidacy would put the GOP in a heck of a bind, forcing members to choose between the prospect of winning and an unpredictable, sometimes unstable nominee who is often his own worst enemy when it comes to unforced errors.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Election Day; Republicans actually started to like Trump. A lot of Republicans. (He’s received more votes than any other Republican in history, although record numbers of people also voted for somebody else.) And some of the most offensive things about Trump are the very reasons that base voters seem to respond to his message.

So now what? If Trump loses, the conspiracy theory will surely persist. But what if he wins? The Times reviews some of the scenarios, from the vice-president elect taking over to the electoral college choosing another candidate, to the House and Senate choosing the president and vice president.

But the real question is, why wouldn’t he serve? If it’s true that Trump is running, at least in part, to finally command the respect of of snickering elites who’ve always considered him a circus ringmaster or a trust-fund barbarian, then leaving seems like the last thing he’d ever do. Instead, it’s more reasonable to assume he’d lord it over those who never thought he’d amount to anything, who dismissed his candidacy from the start.

The only reasonable explanation is that Trump didn’t run for reasons of ego, but for business. He ran as a piece of performance art, the ultimate reality show, laying the groundwork for his own TV network, and figuring out how to expand a run for office into a method of personal enrichment that make those regular pols with their book tours and Fox News gigs drool with envy.

The Trump-won’t-serve idea is considered bizarre, especially in a field where most people aspire to inherit the Oval Office, or work there. The idea that somebody would win and then pass is just incomprehensible, but then again, Trump’s unlikely rise is equally incomprehensible.

Maybe he just craves the attention?