Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, took some wild questions at a town-hall meeting in New Hampshire on Thursday. One woman objected to the wearing of hijabs (which she called “heebie-jobbies”) by airport security officials and wondered if military veterans could be found to replace them. Mr Trump promised to look into it. He thereby conveyed the core principle of his campaign: there is no subject so controversial or off the radar that he will not speak his mind about it. That is what makes his rallies so interesting and, for his audiences, thrilling.
They thrill Republican leaders less — especially when Mr Trump vents his unorthodoxy on the “values” that once brought Christian voters to the polls in droves. Last week the US Supreme Court intervened to void certain Texas laws restricting access to abortion. This sort of judicial meddling has always been oratorical catnip for Republican candidates. Mr Trump said nothing. He was still busy talking, weeks after a mass murder at a gay nightclub in Florida, about what a terrific friend he would be to gays and lesbians.
Mr Trump is looking like one of those cosmopolitan New York politicians who travel badly — former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, for instance, who was the Republican frontrunner in 2008 until voters nationwide got acquainted with his tolerant, big-city ways. But Mr Trump adds a canny understanding of how the broader electorate has drifted away from his party’s preoccupations.