@PChoate I think you are mistakenly focusing on Trump and ignoring his voters.
You're looking at his strategies and changes changes in what Trump can do but overlooking people who actually vote for him, or might be willing to vote for him, when in the end they are the core of the situation.
To put it a different way, Trump likes to act like he is the center of the universe, but he's not, but you are falling into his preferred narrative, agreeing with Trump that he is the center of the universe.