It worked well enough to barely win a general election against HRC, but it hurt him in the midterms and makes him unpopular now.
And imo that explains a lot
Be super restrictionist on immigration
Be loudly "politically incorrect" on tons of stuff
Dominate media coverage all the time, even if it means doubling down on your negative qualities
Outsource issues you don't care about to existing GOP politicians
Then in the general he didn't change much & had the good luck of running against HRC, who was also unpopular
Where Trump actually has to do policy stuff, doesn't want to, still thinks dominating media in crazy ways all the time is great and outsources stuff he doesn't care about to McConnell
The approval rating + 2018 House results show it's not a good strategy
Many People Said he wouldn't win the 2016 primary, but he won anyways. So now when Many People Are Saying he's unpopular, he might be just ignoring it
But I do think there's something to the overall idea here
I sorta agree? For some pols, there's not a bright line btwn strategy and persona. Like if you do politics, what you're doing is by definition a strategy, even if it happens to resemble you IRL
would only tweak slightly & say that Trump "probably won't" change b/c again I don't know him personally --> hard to say can't