If he wishes his reign to be long, then Donald Trump, flamboyant as he is, should surface his inner Gerald Ford. Sandwiched between the national low of Richard Nixon’s forced resignation and Ronald Reagan’s triumphant rise six years later, Ford has the distinction of being the most normal human being ever to become president.

Ford never planned to be president, and that’s a large part of the reason why. On his own, he never would on his own run for president or seen himself in the White House at all. The vibe he projected was the middle-class dad: reading the paper after work in his recliner, raking the yard of his middle-class castle, tossing the football around with his kids.