It’s something Trump hinted at many times, saying the country needs his kind of thinking and money-making prowess. But he seldom brings it home. Trump could say that the skills he’s used to enrich himself can be used to bring prosperity to the voters. And he can say that because he has benefited from the loopholes in our “rigged system,” he is the one who best knows how to close them.

Are some Trump products made overseas? That’s only because our laws, regulations and trade policies incentivize that while making it more difficult to make money in the good old USA. Who better to chop down this jungle of bad laws than someone who has had to try to navigate them himself?

Such arguments would be self-serving, to be sure. But they are also more believable than re-litigating the particulars of obscure business disputes that few people care about or shouting about having a great temperament.

“Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” FDR reputedly said of the Nicaraguan dictator. To win, Trump needs a critical mass of struggling Americans to reach the same verdict about him.