Is Normalcy Donald Trump’s Second Act?

President Trump is currently enjoying some of the highest approval ratings of his presidency, if not his best ever. The Real Clear Politics polls average has him at 44 percent approval and two of the most recent polls show him at 47 and 48 percent. In looking at these numbers, it’s hard not to focus on the fact that, for Trump, the past few weeks have been, well, pretty normal.

In June he had a very normal state visit to England with no real gaffes. For the Fourth of July he gave a speech that liberals and progressives expected to be pure and ugly politics, but wound up being, again, pretty normal. His reactions to criticisms such as a new allegation of sexual assault were pretty mellow by his standards, and his brief walk into North Korea came off as a good bit of diplomacy, despite handwringing among North Korea hawks.

Even before he took office, Trump promised Americans that he could be more presidential, less impulsive and crude. For most of his administration, such a shift was difficult to detect. Trump was Trump: a week, or even two, of keeping his head down always exploded in a firework of unexpected and disconcerting tweets. But that has slowed down, by a lot.

Although some Republicans who lost purple districts in the 2018 midterm might disagree, there wasn’t a lot of reason for Trump not to pivot from his approach in the first two years of his presidency. He kept a laundry list of promises to his base and enough fire and brimstone to keep them committed to him as the guy who fights. But as we edge closer to the 2020 election, could a kinder, gentler Trump be in the offing as the second act that every two-term president needs?

There are several reasons this could be an effective approach, if he can actually hold to it. The first is that the Democrats have discovered their own brand of crazy that is already making Trump look fairly sane. Basically, they’re coming off as suggesting every Democrat older than 60 is a racist and the government has to take over the entire economy to stave off doom in 12 years. Don’t believe me that this is really about the economy? Listen Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff.