He is also in double-digit deficits on qualities such as honesty, good leadership skills, being level-headed (68 percent, including about a third of Republicans, say he is not) and sharing voters’ values. The intensity of his critics (54 percent strongly disapprove) is double that of his fans (27 percent strongly approve). Maybe most humiliating for Trump is that voters by a 49 to 40 percent margin say we’d be better off with Hillary Clinton. Moreover, nearly all of the poll was taken before Trump’s Phoenix meltdown. The one bright spot for him: Most Americans (50 to 39 percent) don’t want to take down Confederate statues.

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To sum up, the overwhelming majority of Americans thinks he is a lying, divisive hothead who is making race relations much worse. Trump barely has majority support (52 percent) among his most loyal segment of the electorate (whites with no college education). He has managed to turn off just about everyone else. He knows how to feed his base red meat but not how to earn the respect and confidence of everyone else. Several thousand people in an auditorium in Phoenix, it turns out, bear little resemblance to the country as a whole.

Trump can read off a teleprompter as he did in announcing his Afghanistan policy on Monday, behave like a madman on Tuesday and revert to a perfectly adequate (though wooden) speech to veterans on Wednesday. While some Americans might suffer from whiplash, most, we suspect, have figured out which is the real Trump is and which is the Trump who is playing the dummy to ventriloquists trying desperately to protect the country (e.g., Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster).

Trump cannot operate off script without losing his cool and revealing his ignorance; his moments of restraint never last long. When he reads other people’s words and expresses sentiments not his own his delivery is flat and stilted. Only when he is in full rage-mode does he become animated. He must distract and attack lest the focus fall on him and his lack of accomplishments.