I don’t know if he can keep this tone, because unlike Ronald Reagan, he’s not an optimistic, generous person. But if he can, and he can keep his ideology anodyne, this message can resonate even with people who don’t like him.

Trump’s speech reframes the election around this core question: Is capitalism basically working or is it basically broken?

Trump can run on the proposition that it’s basically working. He has a lot of evidence on his side: The unemployment rate is the lowest in decades. Wages are rising. The typical family income is higher than it has ever been.

Americans seem to accept this position. Confidence in the economy is higher now than at any moment since the Clinton administration. According to Gallup, 59 percent of Americans say they are better off than they were a year ago. Three-quarters of Americans expect to be even better off a year from now.

Democrats, by contrast, have congregated around the message that capitalism is fundamentally broken and that the economy is bad. As Matthew Yglesias noted recently in Vox, when Democrats were asked in the PBS NewsHour/Politico debate if the economy was good, they all gave the same answer.

Joe Biden: “I don’t think [Americans] really do like the economy. Look at the middle-class neighborhoods. The middle class is getting killed. The middle class is getting crushed.” Pete Buttigieg: “This economy is not working for most of us.” Elizabeth Warren: “A rising G.D.P., rise in corporate profits, is not being felt by millions of families across the country.” And so on down the line.