To those who found Trump's pronouncements absurd, a key to understanding them can be found in an insight buried in an article published by the Atlantic magazine in September.
During an interview the reporter,#Salena Zito, caught Trump out peddling a ginned-up unemployment figure. She did what good political reporters always do and called him on it with a fistful of facts.
He responded with the blithe ease of a man who knew there was no threat for him in this moment.
"That's interesting," he said.#That was when it dawned on her. "The press takes#him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally," she said.
She is right. Trump made himself a populist chimera, and while the establishment bickered about what he meant, he allowed his supporters to make him anything they wanted
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