The, um, Evolution of Donald Trump

THIS TIME a year ago, Donald Trump was throwing red meat to the crowds with both hands at campaign rallies across America; their appetite as political carnivores helped power Trump into the White House. But reality has a way of intruding on fantasy -- to be expected when the fantasy depends on the reality to exist.

Now, we’re starting to see the slightest pivot toward geopolitical and economic reality – realpolitik – taking shape within House Trump. We don’t know for sure who the Donald Whisperer is: maybe Firstborn Plenipotentiary Ivanka Trump, or presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, in his emerging role as a chief personal counselor to the president, a kind of Rasputin in chief.

It sure as hell ain’t Steve Bannon.

Whoever the Oval Office Jiminy Cricket is has been whispering words of a pushback into Trump’s coiffed ear, a recognition of how the big-boy-pants world works -- of what is, finally, the difference between campaigning and governing. ... a difference that Trump has been hard-pressed to observe even before taking office in January.

That pivotal distinction never went away, and it never will. Trump is being dragged, kicking and not quite screaming, to realizing that. There’s a lot of recent evidence to show that process has already taken place. ...

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