Is the “New” Trump invincible?

So, that lasted about a week.

Six days ago,Donald Trumpunderstood that a “new and improved version of himself . . . can actually win the Republican presidential nomination,” asThe Washington Post’sChris Cillizzaput it, and opponents should be “very scared.” A few days later, however, Trumpdecided “never mind,”yanking back power from newly arrived campaign strategistPaul Manafortand redirecting it toward campaign managerCorey Lewandowski,a big believer in letting Trump be Trump, or at least in not stepping into a wood chipper. To celebrate his liberation, Trump has attackedJohn Kasich.“I have never seen a human being eat in such a disgusting fashion,”Trump confidedto a crowd of hundreds in Rhode Island. “This guy takes a pancake and he’s shoving it in his mouth.”

This is the Trump we knew, of course, the one who went missing for, oh, 96 hours. And Trump will win big in the primaries tonight. The Northeast is friendly terrain to his brand of populism, and it’s close to home. Perhaps that will make Trump supporters feel like success is ever likelier—that Trump will sew this nomination up yet. It’s certainly possible that he will. But Trump has an otherworldly capacity for getting in his own way. And there are many reasons to think he’ll keep doing so.

The first is that what Trump doesn’t already know, he often learns too late. In the months leading up to the caucuses in Iowa, word was that Trump didn’t have a ground game. Only after he lost those caucuses did Trump realize,and admit, that he hadn’t familiarized himself with the concept. Then, already after Iowa, came the warnings thatTed Cruzwas outplaying Trump in the game of delegate courtship. Trumpheeded themonly several crucial weeks later. And that’s not to mention counsel regarding self-control in general. “Mr. Trump’s lack of discipline should worry his supporters,”wrotePeggy Noonanback in December. “Because indiscipline shows disrespect.” We all know how much that changed.

Certainly, Trump is far more interested and informed in world affairs than, say,Sarah Palinwas in 2008. But he refuses to remedy his blind spots. Among the things unknown to Trump, even after years of flirting with politics and eight months of running for president, have been the G.O.P. party line on abortion, Geneva Convention obligations, and details of his own immigration-policy platform. Perhaps he’s been too busy campaigning to study up on them. Perhaps he thinks he’ll have lots of free time when he’s president. Or perhaps he feels he’s too old and accomplished and rich to do homework. But it becomes ever more noticeable.

Because people seem to get cold feet on pulling the lever for him, Trump rarely exceeds his poll numbers when the votes come in, and he regularly falls way short. In states that looked competitive, Trump missed his projected results by wide margins—underperforming by nearly 12 percentage points in Virginia, 13 in Mississippi, and more than 30 in Kansas. People thought Super Tuesday might prove decisive, but Trump kept making news,much of it dumb.

So, yes, Trump ought to listen to someone. The trouble for the professionals who would like to control Trump is that they’ve been proven to be misguided just as frequently as the candidate himself. Almost no one grasped how important Trump’s three signature issues—resisting the trade consensus, counterterrorism, and, especially, immigration enforcement—were to the public. No seasoned consultant would have advised Trump to take the approach he has, and yet only Trump’s approach has gotten him this far. It’s like the famous John Wanamaker quip about knowing half of his advertising budget was wasted but not knowing which half. Trump’s intuition, in which Trump is preternaturally confident, is probably sound only about half of the time, but no one knows for sure which half.

In any case, Trump is probably right that he was often being ill-served by Lewandowski, and he is probably right that he has been ill-served by Manafort. I suppose that says something good about his judgment, apart from the inconvenient footnote that he hired them both.

As much as voters seem to be enjoying the scourging of professional Republicans, Trump has more reassuring to do than he is likely capable of. He has stated once again that he cannot afford to act presidential, because he’s under attack. But what politician isn’t? A feeling of victimization leads easily to abuses of power, because what feels to you like a twig used in self-defense is in reality a battering ram. That’s entertaining on the campaign trail, less entertaining in the White House. Not that we’ll necessarily be spared from learning that lesson.