“Trump’s conservative critics miss the salient point that he could assume far more centrist policies and be ahead of where he is. He could win over the GOPe and queasy Hillary parties and have a near universal mandate.”
I’m going to respectfully disagree with you here. I think that the so called centrist policies are firmly rejected by the electorate at this point, and would have rendered Trump’s campaign just one of the other also-rans. Huckabee, Perry, Rubio, and to a lesser extent the unregistered foreign agent of Mexico are all centrists for the most part. Perhaps such thinking isn’t or never was truly center.
The startling fact is that Trump is center. He - and Sanders - are the vox populi representatives of the two parties at this time.
I get your gist. This assumes Trump is not elitist and is in touch with the populas. No other elitist has been able to accomplish this level of identification. He either is a genius or he is a genius, which ever.