And that’s why, if he’s elected, he would probably slow down and moderate. The crucible of a presidential campaign changes candidates. It is humbling. It is hard. It is exhausting. Trump might seem like his expensive suit has a coating of Teflon on it now, but that’s simply because his opponents haven’t yet discovered what his political vulnerability is. It’s there, because he’s human.
Here’s a bonus: Trump often changes his mind, and doesn’t seem to worry about appearing inconsistent. Presidents always change their minds, and they create problems for themselves when they try to fit their new views with their old ways. Trump’s personality would be an asset here, if voters elected him knowing that he’s malleable.
It might well be, the closer we get to the primaries, that his electability and temperament start to matter more to core Republican voters than it does now, amid the afterglow of the limbic arousal that Trump’s candidacy is stroking. More immediately, the second debate, on Wednesday, will help us learn how Trump contends with Ben Carson, a challenger who is not Jeb Bush, and a man with credentials even more unorthodox than a billionaire real estate tycoon. Watching Trump take fire will fill in some of the nagging questions we have about how he’d take fire as president.
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