Politics

Why Trump is stronger than he looks

Mr. Trump is not as weak as current polling seems to indicate. He will have advantages in 2020 that he did not have in 2016. And Democrats are far from proving that they can field a better candidate against him than Hillary was last November.

It is increasingly apparent that Mr. Trump is a unique president as much as he was a unique candidate. The value of comparing his approval ratings to those of other presidents, when he himself is incomparable, is therefore dubious.

This does not mean Mr. Trump has created a new trend in presidential elections. It simply means he is at the confluence of several trends — both current and long-term — in American politics. In many cases, these trends favor him, just as they did so unexpectedly last November.