The not-so-radical Trump presidency

To this point, there’s a strange duality to Trump’s brand of leadership, a gulf between perception and reality. When it comes to standards of behavior, like attacking critics in the media and running the government like a family-owned hardware store, Trump represents as radical a departure from convention as any of us have seen.

But in substance, it seems to me that Trumpism is turning out to be something less remarkable than that: a mostly cautious brand of conservatism that, to the president’s credit, pulls up well short of upending the established order.