How many times have you heard people say that Donald Trump can be his own worst enemy? How many times have you thought that he could do so much more good if he didn’t get in his own way?
Or, as Ben Domenech puts it at Spectator World, “The attitude is ubiquitous among some portions of the president’s base: they just think he’d be better off if he could focus and not give Democrats so much material. But because this hypothetical has never emerged, we never really got to find out if it was true — until now.”
For the last few weeks, we’ve largely seen that wish come true. The debate with Joe Biden handed Trump every opportunity to gloat or run his mouth on a silver platter. He probably has countless nicknames for Biden that he could have trotted out. But he didn’t.
The Trump we’ve seen these last few weeks is a more restrained man. It’s hard to know what to make of it as a conservative, so imagine how the left is struggling with a disciplined Trump.
Domenech writes:
Trump has displayed incredible restraint and focus, not giving any fodder to the media to distract from the Biden White House’s flailing inability to deal with this moment. Democratic commentators have openly complained about the lack of public events from Trump, as if desperate for him to do something, anything to shift the focus. Amid House Democrats’ demoralized caucus meeting, frustrated donor calls and Sorkinesque fantasies about a “convention blitz” of replacement candidates, Democrats and their media allies would love to have anything gifted to them from Trump to talk about instead.
It’s an amazing trend to behold.
It might be the most astonishing moment of a campaign season that has been as unpredictable as anything we’ve ever seen.
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Some people, including my friend and colleague Matt Margolis, viewed Trump’s challenge of a charity golf match with Biden as the potential return of mouthy Trump, but that moment was worthy of no more than a chuckle and a shake of the head — a drop in the bucket compared to what the former president has said in the past.
For the most part, Trump has been willing to let the Democrat implosion speak for itself. This serves as a benefit to his campaign as well as a refreshing new facet to Trump’s personality. Best of all, it’s driving the left mad.
“This disciplined Trump is something we haven’t seen before for any extended period, and it’s working out incredibly well for him, with Biden’s poll numbers sinking after each passing day as Democrats spin in the wind,” Domenech writes. “They want Trump to save them from spending another week talking about the worst thing to happen to their party since 1968 — and he won’t.”
I'm sure he's chomping at the bit every day to say something about the Democrats' plight, but here's hoping this version of Donald Trump sticks around for a while. After all, a restrained Trump drives the left more batty than the mouthy, outspoken one.
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