CONRAD BLACK: Could Donald Trump Seize The U.S. Political Center? Stranger Things Happened.

In the climate created by the nastiest campaign in recent history, and one in which the honesty of the press was a legitimate issue, followed by the greatest electoral upset at least since 1948, coalitions will have to be assembled gradually and from different pieces, issue by issue. Most of us who do not know the congressional personalities had no alternative but to assume and hope that Speaker Ryan and the president’s congressional liaison and the able Health and Human Services secretary, former congressman Tom Price, could count the noses correctly in putting their bill together, to get it to the Senate, where the greater contest was expected. Our confidence was misplaced.

There must be a consensus, even within the Capitol, that the United States simply has to get its system working and become governable again. Everyone there knows that the Republicans won and that the Clinton, Obama, and Bush eminences were rejected amid widespread public discontent with decades of misgovernment.

The argument in democratic politics is always whether the center is a position of strength or weakness, and that depends on whether it can push the Right and Left off to the shoulders, which in these circumstances means crowding over 40% of last year’s primary voters off to the sides, unless large numbers can be induced to succumb to the grace of conversion. Donald Trump is not everyone’s idea of a centrist, but in this crowded scene, he is the only prominent candidate for that honor that we have.

Black’s thesis has been somewhat obviated by events, such as the President railing against the House Freedom Caucus this morning, about whom Black said “Trump will need the Freedom Caucus and can tailor some projects to attract their support.” But there is a broad center to be won, provided Trump can rein in his instinct to fight everyone all at once.