Ah, sweet mystery of President Trump. Why, when he wants so much to win, doesn’t he try to win something bigly, rather than just hanging on?

Where most politicians try to move out from their core to attract other voters, he is the first politician in all human history who seems consciously trying to narrow his of appeal. He loves his base. He loves making it happy, which means feeding it chunks of red meat in the form of berating and baiting the much larger number of people who are not on his side.