Story highlights Andelman: Trump doesn't seem to care much what people say or think

He just plans to continue being The Donald

David A. Andelman is editor emeritus of World Policy Journal and member of the board of contributors of USA Today. The opinions in this article belong to the author

(CNN) There's still a small, increasingly fading hope in the United States -- and indeed much of the world observing our "transition process" -- that Donald Trump will suddenly transform through some magical wizardry into a more or less conventional president of the type we've seen in the 44 previous holders of that office.

But if you believe that's going to happen, you haven't been listening to his every utterance for the past 18 months.

As president #41, the now-beloved George H.W. Bush put it so memorably in the line written by the incomparable Peggy Noonan: "Read my lips." Of course he was referring to the second half of that memorable phrase, namely, "no new taxes."

That was 1988. By 1990, a Democratic Congress had pushed through any number of new taxes to cut the budget deficit, which Bush had to sign. Of course Bill Clinton brought that up in his run for the presidency two years later, and Bush became a one-term president.

There are several big differences today, however.