As the one-year mark of his second presidential term approaches, controversy clings to President Donald Trump and he clings to controversy. The vituperation grimly flung at him and the vituperation he flings back with gusto stem in part from a hostile legacy news media and in part from Trump’s predilection for the impulsive, inflammatory, and outrageous.

Through the force of his mercurial and flamboyant personality and his preternatural ability to give expression to conservative and working-class opposition to an invasive and intolerant progressive orthodoxy, Trump has knit together an impressive multireligious and multiethnic coalition. However, he has proved unwilling or unable to articulate and defend the principles that can sustain a right-wing populism that honors constitutional imperatives and reflects the good sense and decency of the American people. That has left his coalition vulnerable to insurgency from within.

Trump and his team have energetically pursued their stated goals and advanced America’s interests as they see them. The president presides over a growing economy and rising stock market and he has expanded exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas, imposed extensive tariffs that have yielded more than $200 billion in revenues, drastically reduced the inflow and ramped up the deportation of illegal immigrants, and decreased colleges’ and universities’ indulgence of antisemitism and unlawful discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and sex. In foreign affairs, Trump persuaded NATO members to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP. Last June, following 12 days of Israeli air strikes, he authorized the U.S. Air Force to inflict crippling blows on Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear installations, and in October he helped to secure Hamas’ release of Israeli hostages. And he diminished disorder – while weakening Russian and Chinese influence – in the Western Hemisphere by capturing Venezuela dictator and drug lord Nicolás Maduro.

Yet as he enters his second term’s second year, Trump is far from having consolidated a stable and coherent governing majority that will outlast his presidency, or even perhaps this November’s midterm elections. According to the RealClearPolitics Poll Average, Trump’s job-approval rating has remained below 50% since last March. Last week it stood at about 44%.

This is not an aberration. During his first term, Trump’s job-approval rating never exceeded around 47% and, apart from a few months, persisted below 45%.

Notwithstanding big talk about his appeal to ordinary Americans, Trump has run for president three times and won twice but never has he obtained 50% of the politically significant if constitutionally irrelevant popular vote. In 2016, he eked out a razor-thin victory over former Secretary of........

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