Trump sees some value in Pence: He’s pliable enough

cohort whose 2012 turnout was 60.4 percent. There is a low probability that Trump can motivate recent non-voters in this cohort to increase the turnout to 67 percent. There is, however, a high probability that the way he stimulates such people — still more insult oratory and fact-free “policy” expostulations — will cause other groups to recoil.

For the first time since at least 1952 — the first election for which ample data is available — Democrats probably will win a majority of voters with college degrees In 1952, 6.4 percent of Americans had completed college; today, about 33 percent have. Consider, particularly, women with post-bachelor degrees. This fast-growing group — the percentages of women in law, medical and business schools’ enrollments are 48.7, 46.9 and 36.2, respectively — is already about 65 percent Democratic. Can Trump ignite a spike in the non-college white vote without causing a more-than-commensurate increase in the Democratic propensity of the college-educated?

Speaking of low-probability events, Trump’s literary interests were hidden until his vice presidential search took him to Charles Dickens’ “David Copperfield,” where he found Mike Pence, whose sometimes unctuous affect resembles Uriah Heep’s: So very ’umble. The adjective “oily” might have been invented to describe Pence’s performance with Trump on “60 Minutes”:

Being chosen by Trump is “very, very humbling.” Trump is “one of the best negotiators in the world” and will provide “broad-shouldered American strength.” Trump — “this good man” (what would a bad man look like to Pence?) — “is awed with the American people.”

Pence, a social conservative saddened by our fallen world, can minister to the boastful adulterer and aspiring torturer who Pence thinks belongs in the bully pulpit.

In May, Pence endorsed Ted Cruz but larded his endorsement with praise of Trump, who excuses Pence for buckling “under tremendous pressure.” In a year of novelties, now this one: A presidential candidate calls his running mate weak.

Pence has favored free trade, including the North American Free Trade Agreement that Trump calls “the worst economic deal in the history of our country.” Never mind. In 1980, George H.W. Bush denounced Ronald Reagan’s “voodoo economics” until Reagan selected Bush as his running mate, whereupon Bush decided that it was very good voodoo economics.

As Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, says, Trump “has changed the face of the Republican Party” just as Ronald Reagan did. Indeed. A snarl has replaced the sunny California smile. Trump, himself a brand, has completed the rebranding of the Republican Party.