Trump and the moderate majority

WASHINGTON, DC: Among the many maddening aspects of Donald Trump’s domination of American political discourse are the twin challenges he poses to clear thinking. You can overstate his significance and the power of the forces he is unleashing. You can understate them, too.

We have heard the words “Trump leads in the polls” for so long you’d think he has taken the entire country by storm. In fact, Trump is not broadly popular. He leads only in a minority subset of the population -- depending on the survey, projected Republican primary voters or Republicans combined with Republican-leaning independents. Neither of these groups represent a majority of Americans.