Those who believe conspiracies exist behind every decision or public policy action might be inclined at this moment to believe the following …

That the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, really doesn’t want the job for which he has been campaigning and is throwing the election on purpose.

Do not count me as a conspiracy theorist. I believe men have walked on the moon, that the 9/11 attacks were a surprise and that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed President Kennedy.

The Trump phenomenon, however, has me thinking — yet again — about whether the guy really wants to become president of the United States.

He gets his party’s nomination, then sits through four days of watching the Democrats nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton the next week.

Then, right out of the chute after Clinton secures the nomination, Trump goes after the parents of a fallen U.S. Army soldier who happened to be Muslim, and then insists that a crying baby be removed from a rally at which he was speaking. Then he said he wished he could have earned a Purple Heart in combat.

What in the name of the Theater of the Absurd is going on here?

Time and time and time again, Trump has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of anything regarding governance. He reportedly quizzed a senior campaign staffer about why the United States was prohibited from using nuclear weapons; Trump’s campaign has denied that he asked the question. OK, Don … whatever you say.

The Republican Party brass can’t stand him. His campaign appears to be disintegrating before our eyes.

Is it on purpose? Is the GOP nominee deliberately sabotaging his campaign so he can stick it in the collective eyes and/or ears of those who fear for their party’s viability as a legitimate political instrument?

Look, I don’t know if any of this is true. It’s just that the unpredictability factor of this campaign makes it impossible to dismiss what — in normal times — would seem to be preposterous in the extreme.

Nothing at all would surprise at this point.

After all, the Republican Party nominated this guy to run for president of the United States of America. Is there anything more preposterous than that?