It’s not as though his GOP rivals were there to assess fine points of policy, either. Their game was one of finesse delivery of nice-sounding but misleading talking points, the game the GOP had long-ago adopted and nearly perfected.

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But now Trump was playing a different game altogether, one of confounding his opponents. He scrambled the contents of the familiar talking points and added personal insults, and succeeded in getting them off-balance, then walking all over them, one at a time.

He didn’t really defeat Hillary Clinton this way. One of her strengths was in keeping her balance and staying on-message, but he certainly footed the media. He saw that they had one foot in news and another in viewership, and ended up getting them to trip all over each other to feature his outrageousness. To his advantage, not theirs.

And so now he strides about in the Oval Office, with the House and the Senate and soon the Supreme Court ready to play footsie with him. He has enough potential power to bigfoot just about anyone he wants to. There is only one problem he still has: Despite his talents at wrong-footing others, it turns out that he is something of a klutz himself. He has tripped himself up already more than a few times. He operates by attack and instinct, not by preparation. And as feet go, this may be his one Achilles’ heel.

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He has begun his term off-balance, and it imperative to keep him off balance. Everybody with any imagination has already shuddered at the thought of Trump actually consolidating and expanding his hypothetical power. And the potential to keep him off-balance is there, in the majority of Americans who understand who he is and who are determined to not let him stomp all over them.